Today I perform random acts of kindness wherever I go. I love helping people who are striving to help themselves and bringing joy to others.

The people worth helping are usually easy to spot and awkward to approach. Somebody retraining at forty-three. Somebody three months into a business nobody has heard of yet. They are working hard and it isn't showing, which is exactly the stage at which friends go quiet.

Help at that point is rarely money. It is an introduction, an hour spent reading something over properly, a message in March asking how it's going when everyone else asked in January.

Joy is a strange thing to try to deliver directly. It tends to turn up sideways, as a by-product of somebody being taken seriously.