Do Something for Nothing: Lessons from Joshua Coombes and Taking the Long Way Home
In 1973, Stanford psychologists John Darley and Daniel Batson set out to answer a troubling question: Why do good people so often fail to do good things?
Findings from the so-called Good Samaritan Experiment remain among the most widely cited in modern psychology.
And so it went: 67 Stanford students were asked to prepare course material and deliver it across campus. Each student was assigned a different level of urgency. One group was told they were running behind, another that they had moderate time, and a third that they were in no rush at all.
Little did they know that en route to their destination, Darley and Batson had planted an actor slumped over on the sidewalk in their direct path, coughing and moaning as if in obvious distress. What they found: only 10% of participants who felt rushed offered help, compared with 45% of those in the medium-hurry group, and 63% of those who were not rushed at all (Darley & Batson, 1973).
Oh, and I forgot to mention… all 67 participants were Seminary students whose task at hand was to deliver a sermon on the biblical parable of the Good Samaritan. Ironic, don’t you think?
What this study suggests is that personal characteristics, such as whether someone was religious, had virtually no bearing on helping behavior. Instead, participants’ willingness to stop depended almost entirely on how rushed they felt.
Dr. Laurie Santos, social scientist and professor of Yale's single most popular course, Psychology and the Good Life, points to a concept that might explain the behavior of our future pastors and clergy members. Even those primed for lives of service and taking the moral high ground can become so constrained by their schedules that they walk right past someone in need. Santos calls this phenomenon time famine.
She argues in her Happiness Lab podcast episode “The Art of Doing Nothing” that most people today experience a chronic sense of time famine, that nagging sense that there will never be enough hours in the day. They move from task to task, feel overwhelmed by their schedules, and become so focused on what's next that they lose the ability to be present. Sound familiar?
This perceived lack of time reduces happiness, increases stress, and even makes people less likely to engage in prosocial behaviors, such as helping others in need (Aydogan, 2024).
After listening to the podcast, I was feeling pretty down in the dumps about the state of our world. How did we get so off course that efficiency and living by a calendar seem to matter more than small acts of kindness?
Then, as if an angel had spawned from the heavens to remind me that not all hope is lost, I met Joshua Coombes.
Coombes was visiting the school where I work to speak with students about empathy and kindness. Little did I know that his outlook on life would spark some much-needed reflection about my own.
A hairdresser by trade, Coombes was leaving his shift at his London salon on a spring evening in 2015. He had seen the same man experiencing homelessness nearly every night on his walk home, but this time, a thought crossed his mind: with his tools already packed in his backpack, why not offer the man a haircut?
“A haircut is not the first thing on your list of things you’ve thought you were going to do that day if you’re sat there on the street,” Coombes recounts. “You’re thinking about where you’re getting your next meal or where you might be staying that night. So me walking up and offering a haircut was unexpected, but he was really receptive.”
By Coombes's account, the haircut quickly became secondary to the conversation that unfolded. The two exchanged stories, laughed, and connected on a deep level. He struck up a friendship with the man, and when he later met several of his friends, Coombes extended the same invitation, turning a one-time haircut into the beginning of something much larger.
There is something refreshingly human about the simplicity of Coombes's gesture. His haircuts are not flashy or grandiose, just a quiet acknowledgment of another person's dignity – his way of saying, I see you.
As Coombes listened to his clients' stories, one thing was clear: many had arrived at homelessness through circumstances that could happen to almost anyone: job loss during an economic downturn, a minor offense in adolescence that continued to limit employment opportunities years later, escaping an abusive home environment, or countless other difficult realities.
“You can provide all the funding you want,” Coombes says, “but there’s a missing piece of the puzzle, which is the acknowledgment of how important it is to connect with people and treat them in a dignified way.”
About a year after that first haircut, Coombes left his salon job and committed himself fully to this unique mission. He launched #DoSomethingForNothing, a movement that encourages people to use a little spare time and their unique skills to make a positive difference in their communities.
What this modern-day Good Samaritan demonstrates is that kindness is contagious.
His hashtag spread rapidly, inspiring people around the world to ask themselves the question: What’s one simple act I can do for someone else?
A veterinarian began carrying leftover dog treats on the commute home and sharing them with dogs living on the street. A yoga instructor started offering free classes to unhoused neighbors in her community. Thousands of others found their own ways to contribute.
The acts themselves may be modest, but their influence is far from it. Photos and testimonials from Coombes's clients reveal how even a simple haircut can create ripple effects, restoring confidence, dignity, and a renewed sense of self. See below.
Lately, I've found myself operating on autopilot – always hurried, governed by my calendar, and treating every spare minute as an opportunity to get one more thing done. In that state of constant motion, I'd admittedly fall into the same camp as the Stanford students in the "hurried" condition: too preoccupied to stop, help, or perhaps even notice the man slumped over on the sidewalk.
Josh's story gave me a much-needed wake-up call. It reminded me that time spent investing in people and communities is never time wasted.
So, this summer, to the best of my abilities, I’m flipping the script.
Dr. Santos offers a powerful way to rethink our relationship with time. Time scarcity, as many of us know all too well, is that dreadful feeling that there will never be enough hours in the day to tackle our ever-growing lists of to-dos. But time scarcity's hotter, more emotionally regulated cousin just entered the villa… and her name is time affluence.
Time affluence is the feeling that you have enough time for what truly matters. It's not about squeezing more hours into the day, but about cultivating a sense of control, spaciousness, and intentionality in how you spend your time.
The thing about the Good Samaritan study is that stopping to help would have been a win-win. If the man had actually been sick, the few seconds it would take to get him water or phone the medics could’ve made a real difference. But helping would have benefited the students, too. Helping behavior can boost our mood, give us a sense of purpose, and shift our attention away from our own stress and worries (The Happiness Lab, The Art of Doing Nothing).
A concept I recently stumbled upon – and one I want to embrace with open arms this summer – is idling. Simply put, it means spending a little more time doing nothing. It's the opening movie scene where someone sips a coffee while gazing contemplatively out the window (their thoughts, a mystery, but their energy, undeniably zen). It's ditching the headphones for the sounds of the birds and the breeze on a daily walk. It's taking the long way home from work because the songs the Spotify DJ is serving really are that good.
And maybe there's something more to it: when we spend a little more time idling, rather than focusing so intently on the next item on the to-do list, we create space to notice others, connect, and be a part of something bigger.
Time scarcity, we had ourselves a time, but I'm exploring other options… time affluence and I have a chat by the fire pit.
(Ok, I’ll cool it with the Love Island references now, I do apologize).
I’m indebted to Coombes and Santos for the gentle reminder that returning to our original human tendencies – looking out for our tribes and living a little – might just bring a deeper sense of fulfillment than crossing another item off my to-do list.
I’ll end on the dopamine hit that inevitably comes from reading the jumbled thoughts and handwriting of elementary school students. Lots of wisdom to be gleaned from these little humans :)
personal reflections from Joshua Coombes' biggest fans
Peace & love,
Charlotte
References:
NIH, “Acute stress reduces effortful prosocail behavior” (2024): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10942768/
The Happiness Lab, episode The Art of Doing Nothing: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-art-of-doing-nothing/id1474245040?i=1000766844019
"FROM JERUSALEM TO JERICHO" (The Good Samaritan Study): https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Darley-JersualemJericho.pdf