A Lesson in Loving Kindness

So many times we hear or experience the negative side of the human psyche. Someone cuts us off in traffic, we watch the news and see war, murder, or rape. Maybe we've experienced these things first hand. Either way, it's really easy to see humanity as crumbling around us. But every once in a while something happens to make you take a step back and realize that most people - a really solid majority - are good and decent.

This morning I had to take my mom's dog to the vet for her annual shots. As we were leaving, a man came in. He was dressed very shabbily, had a long shaggy beard and holes in his jacket. He walked up to the counter and handed a pair of glasses to the girl at reception.

'Are these yours? I found them in the parking lot.'

The girl replied that they weren't, but that she was just a temp - the regular receptionist was off sick. Perhaps they belonged to her, or to someone else in the office. The man nodded and asked if she'd mind showing them around to the rest of the staff to see who they might belong to.

'And if you don't mind, if no one claims them, maybe you can take them around to the other businesses in this strip, see if maybe they belong to someone at the real estate office, or maybe the jewelers.'

The girl paused a moment, looking confused. She said she'd leave a note asking the usual receptionist if she could.... she might.....

The man paused, taken aback.

'Well, I should HOPE she'd be willing to do that. These are obviously prescription...very expensive...see, designer name glasses. If someone could take the time to bring them in here, you'd think they'd have the decency to see if any of their fellow tenants lost them. That's just the decent thing to do. If you can't do that, how can you call yourself a human being?'

He shook his head sadly, and slowly walked out. As he passed me, I smiled.

'Thank you.'

Sometimes we all need a reminder that we're all in this together. In these tumultuous times, we need to look out for each other.