Acts of kindness give reason for hope in 2022

What lies ahead for the new year is the uneasy question on everyone's mind. To some, 2022 has already dropped the ball.

We've already commemorated the deadly January 6 insurrection. We've seen people stuck in traffic for hours and in airports for days. We've seen a spike in COVID-19 cases triggering a nationwide epidemic of déjà vu.

Clairvoyant Winslow Eliot knows what we're feeling.

"Anytime there's uncertainty or anxiety, people want to know their future," Eliot told CBS News.

So at my request, Eliot shuffled her tarot cards to read the future of the United States.

One card told her that the future has "a higher octave of where we are now." The next card told her that time is "going inward."

The first two cards weren't quite uplifting, but the wildcard in the query is the resilient group of Americans who dictate their own future, always taking whatever lousy hand they're dealt and somehow finding aces.

Whether it's the woman who turned her airport delay into ukulele practice or the strangers who broke bread from a bakery truck on I-95 when a snowstorm brought traffic to a halt overnight, we saw smiles pop up in the most unlikely places this week.

At Steve Hartman's request, clairvoyant Winslow Eliot read tarot cards for the United States. The final card represented
At Steve Hartman's request, clairvoyant Winslow Eliot read tarot cards for the United States. The final card represented

Heidi and Steve Boatright lost everything in the Marshall Fire in Colorado, but have since been flooded with good will and great comfort.

"People sending care packages, donating, sending gift cards — names we don't know, we're trying to google some of these names, like who is this? I don't know who this is?!" said Steve Boatright.

"It's pretty remarkable," Heidi Boatright added.

I hear stories of kindness like that and wonder — is our future fated? Or is it divined from the way we treat one another? The latter is what I believe — and Eliot's final card agrees.

"It's a card of choosing love," she said.

To contact On the Road, or to send us a story idea, email us: OnTheRoad@cbsnews.com.

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