Just a few days ago, a message in a bottle was found on a quiet beach in Australia —
a letter written by two young soldiers during the First World War.
That news stayed with me.
It reminded me how kindness, once released into the world, can travel across oceans — and even a century.
I imagined a woman who had spent years cleaning the shore —
hands in gloves, a bag beside her,
collecting broken glass and forgotten plastic.
Her only reward had been the soft touch of sand and the rhythm of waves.
Until one day she found that bottle.
Inside — a message filled with laughter, written by voices long gone.
She said:
“I cleaned the beach for years and never expected a reward.
Then this bottle came — a hundred years later, carrying joy.”
And somewhere else, another woman — perhaps in another time —
wrote her own message to the sea:
“Hello, stranger.
I walk along a beach where the wind erases footprints every night.
So I send my words in bottles, hoping one will survive.
If you find it, please — be kind, for no reason at all.
The world turns on these small acts of kindness.”
Sometimes our messages take years to arrive.
But they do arrive —
carried by waves, or by hearts that still believe in kindness. 🌿
Maybe every act of kindness is a bottle floating across time,
waiting to reach the right shore.
Has one ever reached you?