You Can't Be a Giver Halfway

Turn on the news (No, don't, really, don't do it now), and you see horror after horror. Is it any wonder we all feel down about humankind?

If you've read my photo essays, I often urge you to be present, to look at the gliding gulls, the crashing surf, and the scudding clouds.

Planet Earth offers us such goodness; all we have to do is be open to it.

But civilization brings us uncivilized behavior, from cutting someone off in traffic to war.

There's a tide of terror coming at us every day.

Through media selection, what we become focused on are the horrors. If it bleeds, it leads.

But some of us try to change that pattern. Some of us seek out the simple, good things the people near us do and acknowledge them. Our local paper, The Long Beach Patch, often does that. (Ed, please note.)

I've already shown you a lady who has been observing good people doing their good things and bringing them to the fore, in her own way.

I bring her to you again.

Perhaps we can take a lesson from her and pay more attention to the simple goodness around us. Talk about it more with friends.

Better yet, we can follow those kind acts with more acts of kindness of our own.

Tiny things can change someone's day. A person can go to the supermarket and return without speaking to anyone but the cashier. It doesn't have to be that way. Maybe, if we engage where it is welcome, we might all be better for it.

Sometimes, I let a young working person go ahead of me on a bagel line with, "Please, go ahead, I'm retired, every day is Saturday." That might change the start of a day for that person, and me.

It's all about giving when we can, whether it's yielding the right of way on the road or in line at the Marvel store.

Please see, You Can't Be a Giver Halfway

Be well,

Leebythesea