So Simple, So Easy
What I learned from Peyton Manning and YoYo Ma

ELIZABETH GEORGE
April 17, 2026

I’m writing something quite different today because there are times when I have to turn away from the chaos and ignorance of this present period in the US to look elsewhere. Sometimes, where I look is into memory.

Here in Seattle, we have a famous bus driver. He’s called Nathan Vass, and recently at a group book-signing, I found myself seated next to him. I had read about him in the Seattle Times several years earlier, but I had never met him. I felt as if I were coming in contact with a celebrity. My words to him: “Oh my God! You’re the bus driver!” He smiled and said, “I am.” He was signing copies of his book Deciding to See. Eagerly, I bought one. I have since read it, and I have no hesitation in recommending it.

In his book, Nathan writes about his time as a bus driver, mostly on the Number 7 bus route, mostly at night. The Number 7 bus goes through one of the roughest areas in the city, frequented by homeless people, drug addicts, patients at a methadone clinic, and gang members. Among them are also elderly people of all races who have lived in the area for decades. Nathan’s book is about his decision not only to begin seeing these people instead of merely looking past them but also to begin being kind to them, to engage with them, to learn about them, and to share his humanity with theirs. After reading story after story, I found myself uplifted by having shared his experiences—albeit only in print—and by being exposed to his unfailing kindness for which he received from his hundreds of riders kindness in return. His constant reminder to the reader—implied only, never stated directly—is that kindness is simple: it’s merely a combination of humility and engagement.

I was first exposed to the simplicity of humility and engagement (i.e. kindness) at Seattle Symphony some 20 years ago. Having moved only recently to the Pacific Northwest, I was thrilled to see that YoYo Ma—the world famous and widely celebrated cellist—would be appearing with something that was called The Silk Road Project. I had no idea what that was, but I decided at once that my husband and I would go. I opted for very good seats. This, after all, was YoYo Ma.

When he took the stage, he did so with a group of musicians that represented artists from countries associated with the Silk Road regions: musicians from East Asia, Central Asia, South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. I discovered in the program that YoYo Ma had himself founded the project, and when they played together, it was magical. At the end of the concert, the group took their bow together. To my surprise, absolutely nothing special was made of YoYo Ma. He took his bow with the other musicians; he left the stage with the other musicians. He was a huge “star” in the world of music, yet he asked for no acknowledgment of that fact, no moment during which a spotlight had to be shone on him.
In subsequent appearances with the Seattle Symphony, YoYo Ma was the Man of the Moment, the guest artist, the musician whom people had come to see. As such, he was showered with applause, with standing ovations, with enthusiastic delight. He always did an encore. But he also did something else: for his encore, he brought another musician from the orchestra to join him. Once it was a cellist, once it was a violinist. And once, after intermission and to the audience’s surprise, he sneaked on stage with the rest of the cellists and played the remainder of the concert with them, merely popping up at the end with the rest of the orchestra, laughing at his own mischief.

So you can imagine how I felt the day my husband and I were flying from Boston to Atlanta on our way home to Seattle when the utterly unexpected happened. I had sprung for first class tickets. At the time, everyone still wore masks. We were already seated when an Asian man wearing glasses and a mask came down the aisle and sat directly behind me. I turned to my husband and murmured, “Could you glance back and tell me if that appears to be YoYo Ma.” He did as I asked, then turned to me and—blue eyes huge with surprise—nodded. Oh my God, I thought. What to do, what to do. I had seen him on stage time and again, I had watched as President Obama awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, he was number one on my list of Who Would Be a Dinner Guest if You Could Invite Anyone? I had to say something to him, I had to let him know…. I leaned into the space between my seat and my husband’s and said to him, “If I promise not to bug you during the flight, can you please tell me if you’re YoYo Ma.” He could have done anything or said anything. He could have ignored me altogether. Instead, he leaned forward and said “Yes. I am,” and began a conversation with us that lasted until the plane took off. I told him much of what I’ve just written for you: when I’d seen him, what he’d done, what I thought of the kindness he showed in doing what he did. He thanked me graciously. And then he went on to ask what we did. He thanked my husband for his service as a firefighter. He engaged me on the writing of British crime novels. I asked him if it was true that he’d once left his cello in the back of a taxi. He laughed and said oh yes, it was completely true.

What I’ll never forget about those 20+ minutes was the absolute kindness YoYo Ma—world renowned musician—showed me and my husband. It cost him nothing, really, to be kind to us, just as it had cost him nothing to share the stage with other musicians. It was simple. It was easy. It meant everything to us.
Peyton Manning did something similar in an entirely different situation. I didn’t experience it. I read about it. A woman, suffering with cancer, wrote to him and told him how his performance with the Broncos during the previous football season had got her through her chemotherapy. He had given her something to look forward to, and she wanted him to know how grateful she was. In return, he sent her tickets for very good seats at the next game. However, when she and her husband showed up, they were asked first to follow an usher. The usher took them to a room in the stadium, where Peyton Manning was waiting for them. Here is the part that impressed me: he crossed the room to them, holding out his hand, and saying, “Hi, I’m Peyton Manning.” What I love about the moment is not only the kindness of being there to greet them but also the humility of introducing himself to them. The woman said to him, “Oh, I know who you are,” because of course she did. Anyone who follows football would have recognized him. What impressed me was that, by introducing himself, he was acknowledging that they were all human beings on equal footing simply because they were all human beings engaged in the human experience.

Being kind is absolutely simple. It is, indeed, breathtakingly simple. It exists in the acknowledgment of other people. It’s offered in the smile directed at someone on the street. It’s saying “please” when ordering a meal from a waitperson. It’s calling out “thank you” to the bus driver as you exit the bus. It’s talking to people about their dogs when you’re walking your own or when you are simply walking. It’s asking people what they need or how you can help them. It’s engaging your taxi driver in conversation. It’s helping someone to board mass transmit. It’s offering your seat to someone who needs it more than you do. It is so, so simple.

We have opportunities to practice kindness every day. Yet often in the rush of our lives, we fail to grasp those opportunities. But imagine, if you will, how a connection made in a moment of goodwill can actually spread from one person to another, uplifting every person it touches until it touches everyone.

© 2026 Elizabeth George
548 Market Street PMB 72296, San Francisco, CA 94104