Have You Been Naughty Or Nice?

This post is not related to Christmas or anything of that sort. Over dinner at my gramps place (mom's side), the topic of giving alms under grandpa's name was brought up.

In Buddhism, giving of alms is the beginning of one's journey to Nirvana. 

That was plucked from Wikipedia. I don't know the entirety of the relationship between giving alms and souls but what I do know is that it helps the soul gain merits so that they can reach Nirvana. Naturally we started to talk about what good deeds we have done for ourselves or for grandpa's soul.

Then my mom mentioned an incident that happened last weekend when she was in NSK. She was queuing behind this foreigner and he had two apples in hand for weighing. Then there was an exchanged of words between him and the guy behind the counter. Both were speaking in a foreign language. In the end, the guy only decided to buy one apple instead. So my mom assume that perhaps the guy was trying to bargain for the price of the apples. Seeing that the apples only cost 40 cents each, my mom told the guy behind the counter that she would pay for it. 

Fast forward to today, it had me thinking. How often do we do something nice? In a scenario as mentioned above, we can't possible expect anything more than a thank you. Which leads to this question. How often do we do something nice WITHOUT expecting anything in return?