I know it is not much, but I give to the people on the side of the road. If I have an apple or three, a couple of bananas, avocadoes, or anything that I can afford to pass on without making it so I do not have something to eat that day, anything in my car at the time that is not already been chewed on is fair game for my compassion, in passing it on to someone who might not have had anything to eat.
I do not feel pride for this actions, because to many times I rush by in a hurry to somewhere else, or all I have is my lunch for work. It hurts me to know that this stranger on the side of the road may not get anything to eat.
So, here are two things that rub me the wrong way. Firstly, when people think someone else will help. It is so easy just to walk, or drive by cause you think the next guy will help, but what if they don’t? What if that extra apple that you ended up tossing away anyways could have assuaged someone’s pain even for an hour or so. What if despite not being enough to fill that person’s stomach up your kindness was the light that slightly brightened an otherwise painful and lonely day? Secondly, when people say that this person is probably trying to scam you. So what if they are, their potential deceit will not lessen my overall desire to be compassionate, because what if they next person I would have helped truly needed it and I refused because I was jaded? Hell, how about if that person that you were so suspicious of was truly needy? This fog of distrust of those in need has clouded our communities, cities, states, and this country that some claim they desire to make great again.
Maybe my heart bleeds a little too much because I have been hungry, and alone before. But haven’t you ever been hungry, scared, lonely, or in pain? Why dismiss the suffering of others when you know pain? It is our capacity for creativity, and compassion that makes us great. It is the art of reading, seeing, or merely thinking that allows us to switch places and to a degree feel what other’s feels that makes us human. Please find that part of yourself and once you do, do not allow that part of yourself to be lost.
