When the world is turned upside down, people clamor for unity. When tragedy strikes, killing one or hundreds, people flock to selflessly help their neighbors. But when everything is settled and it’s everyday life, people mostly ignore everyone else.
So why is it that people help others only when something traumatic has happened? Why does someone have to die and the world have to suddenly change for us to help our neighbors? Can’t helping with the small, everyday things make for a better world, better than abrupt unity and aid borne of trauma?
I know the little things make my day and my world better. I smile every time a stranger tells me I’ve left something behind or helps me carry something. It’s the simple and mundane things, like a coin in the expired parking meter or returning a fallen item, that can save someone’s whole day.
Yes, everyone appreciates another person’s aid when the world’s rough and nothing makes sense. Only, how much is appreciated and how much merely expected? The idea that people help other people when their world is bleak and crushed has come to be a norm, a moral right. If you don’t help them, then it's as if you’re not a good or nice person. Some would even say that during a time of unity you’re not heeding your nationality.
But how many people expect help with the everyday, small things? Even something as simple as telling a driver he left his headlights on can go a long way.
The smallest of things can have the biggest effects. This idea was used in the movie Pay it Forward, directed by Mimi Leder, in which a young boy (Haley Joel Osment) decides to prove the good of human nature. He makes a plan that for every person helped, that person must help three more. So, if I were to pay for someone’s haircut after they lost their credit card, that person would have to help three more people. And those three people that were helped each need to help three more.
Article comments
1 - Mary K. Williams
YES!