some nice advice

I haven’t blogged in a long time because many people don’t read what I have to say. A lot of my blogs in the past have been about personal struggles and with a culture where our world is really all about the mindset of, “Fuck you, I’m too busy trying to get mine and I really don’t have time to worry about what you have going on inside your head right now,” I began to feel like it was pointless to share my feelings with the public (and my friends) at large unless I was specifically asked to do so. Often I am not and after a lot of struggle with that, I realized that’s okay. I have a journal and I have a husband and a therapist who do listen.

Today is different though. I saw a video that affected me profoundly and I wanted to share my feelings with whomever would listen because the video really hit close to home. It was a video of a young Hispanic man going up to two separate individuals. One in a restaurant and asking if he might have a bit of their food because he was very hungry and he had no money. The person’s reply was no. The second cut of the video is the same young man going up to another individual in a food court asking the same question, again he is turned away. Both individuals had plenty of food and could have shared if they had wanted to. The video cuts to black and words come up where the filmmaker says, “I had my friend give a homeless man some food.” The young man from earlier in the video approaches the homeless elderly man and asks him if he could please have some food because he’s very hungry and the homeless man asks him, “You’re hungry?” Without hesitation he splits his sandwich in half and hands it to the young man and they sit together and share their food. The image is so moving that even now I’m tearing up just writing about it. An elderly man with nothing who was likely just as hungry as the young man had no compunction about giving up half of his food to someone in need but individuals with plenty and with the capability of getting more were unwilling to share with someone less fortunate.

This video depicts in one minute and twenty-eight seconds everything I have always struggled to reconcile in my mind about modern humanity. When I see things like this, it physically hurts me. How is it so easy for another person to turn a blind eye to another individual in pain whether it is physical, emotional, or otherwise simply because one has what they need? Should it not be the duty of humanity to ensure that our kind is cared for? That we’re all okay?

For years I struggled with depression and for years so many watched and turned a blind eye. Perhaps thinking, “I got mine. I’m happy. I don’t want that raining on my parade. I don’t have time for that. Let someone else handle it.” Or like the car with the flat where people drive by not helping the motorist, “I can’t stop, I have somewhere to be. Someone else will stop.” Or the person in the apartment next door screaming while their partner is hitting them. “Someone else in the building will call. I don’t want to get involved.” The homeless man with his sign that says he is a veteran and he’s hungry. “How do I know it’s not a scam? Yeah I have loose change in my pocket but what if I need it for something?” How hard is it to hold a door open for someone behind you? Or the person behind the register who looks a little sad that might need a smile. Or heavy kid sitting in the corner that no one will talk to because they’re heavy and they’re being judged for it. 

The internet is bombarded with shaming photos surreptitiously taken with cellphone cameras and posted to social media pages making fun of people for looking "ugly" or "stupid" according to the photographer. How many of us (even myself in the past) have judged others for wearing the wrong thing and said terrible things about each other behind the other person's back. How many wait until so-called friends are out of earshot or just not present and say terrible things about them to, what? Build ourselves up? We do so many things just to not be there as friends for our friends and as good people to other people. We have become isolated little communities of our families, couples, and if we're pushed we may move outside of that for a moment but the vast majority doesn't now. Videos like the one I saw today are made for a reason. They're meant to show us that we're moving in a very wrong direction and we need to wake up. 

When did we stop caring about each other? When did it all become about our own bullshit? When did it become too much effort to simply take a minute to ask one another if we’re all okay? Is it too difficult for us to share? Not just our food but ourselves? Is it too hard to say hello? To check in? To be kind? Are we too afraid to open up because we've been isolated for so long?

Once upon a time I worked in a field where I saw the terrible things that people would do to one another for the sake of, “I gotta get mine.” For money, for drugs. I saw crimes of passion and jealousy. I held the hands of people while they were dying and never once did anyone ever say as their last words that they wished they had made more money or had more material possessions. Never once did I hear someone say that they wished they were alone. Most of the time they were terrified of the fact that they would be alone at that last moment and wanted someone there to tell them it would be okay, even when it was a complete stranger. The most profound thing I ever heard someone say as their last words is that they wish they had been a nicer person.

Be a nicer person. To yourself and to others. Because you don’t know when your last day will be. None of us do. It's a risk but sometimes it's worth it. I took a risk meeting two complete strangers in December 2008 and I ended up married to one of them years later. The other one even bought me dinner because I was hungry.