Sometimes the daily grind of living can wear a person thin emotionally and mentally. This spiritual fatigue can cause people to become jaded and cynical, to believe the worst about humanity rather than the best. I have experienced moments such as this, where I see the world with an eye turned towards the negative and expect people to indulge their basest, ugliest instincts rather than their higher ones. I loathe feeling that way because it really goes against what I deeply believe to be true about all people--I think they are innately good. It is at those times when I feel that the world is inhabited by rude, selfish, thoughtless people, that a random act of kindness or generosity reveals to me the skewed nature of my current perspective.
The gratitude I feel for those instances when people surprise me by being nice, polite, generous, and thoughtful restore my faith in humanity. I recall several incidents where people have, for no good reason other than to be kind, have done something to help me or my loved ones. I also vividly recall the feelings I associate with those particular memories--feelings of appreciation, warmth, and connectedness. And those feelings then strengthen my determination to live a life of service, kindness and generosity.
I remember one time when I was fourteen years old, my family traveled from Louisiana to New Mexico to visit my maternal grandfather. My mother had taken her travel case with her. This case was an old-fashioned affair, a large hard-sided box with a handle...a throwback from the 1950s. Its bulk caused it to be in the way as we traveled, so my father strapped it to the top of the car with the rest of our luggage. Unfortunately for my mother, it blew off the top of the car in the middle of the night. Not only had it held her jewelry and toiletries, but it also contained credit cards and a variety of other items meaningful to her, most importantly her mother's wedding band and engagement ring. We went back fifty miles along the interstate looking for the box, but could not find it. My mother cried the rest of the way to New Mexico and refused to speak to my father for several days after we arrived.
About four days later, my mother received a phone call from a man she had never met. He spotted my mother's travel case on the side of the road and thought that it would make a good tackle box for fishing, so he pulled over to pick up. After examining the contents he found in the case, he realized that it must be very special to someone, and he spent an hour combing the shoulder along the interstate gathering up her items. He found the credit cards, and used them to get contact information for my mother, finally tracking her down several days later. He went to tremendous effort to return this case to my mother, and did it just because he realized that it was the right thing to do. On our way home, we stopped in Nachadoches, Texas and picked it up from this kind gentleman, and I will always remember being awed by his act of generosity in returning her valued belongings. It made a deep impression on me about the kindness of strangers.
Several other times people have stopped to help us out when we've had car trouble or run out of gas. One woman gave my sister twenty dollars and a card telling her to go buy some dinner and some coffee when my nephew had been in the hospital for a few weeks and my sister had reached the bottom of exhaustion. This woman's son had been in the hospital for two months after a severe car accident, and she had the kindness in her heart to want to make my sister feel better. When my father had his stroke and my sister and I were four hundred miles from home and living out of a motel room during the early stages of his recovery people we barely knew helped pay for our hotel and food, knowing we had limited funds at the time. I saw one man overhear a conversation in line at a pharmacy between an elderly woman and the pharmacist, and the woman had to make a decision about which medication she could pay for that month because she couldn't pay for them both. He ended up buying both prescriptions for her, well over $200.00 worth of medicine.
These stories keep me faithful to the idea that people truly care about one another. They feel a fundamental connection to each other, even if they can't properly articulate it on a daily basis. I know at the very core of me that if given the opportunity, people will do good, engage in acts of kindness and charity, and love each other. They just will because we all want to feel that satisfaction of knowing we make a difference in this world. Our impact on others proves our existence. It is a tangible means of acknowledging our connection with all people and a marking of our place in this world. People who behave cruelly usually consist of persons alienated and estranged from their connection to others. They either choose to deny their humanity and their link to all people, or they just have no ability to feel it. I am profoundly sorry for those people because they will never realize the true joy and meaning behind being kind and thoughtful and useful to others. Most people believe those who treat others badly will spend eternity in hell, but I argue that they already live in hell on earth because they remain devoid of human connection with their fellow man.
Some people might say I have a pollyanna attitude about humankind. They may assert that I have my head buried in the sand and do not accurately see people. I would argue that I see them more clearly than most. I am grateful that I focus on the good aspects of humanity and that I truly believe that this world and it's inhabitants are good and want to do good. It really is the only way I can live my life, and I am really happy to live it in such a manner.
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