Like any normal thursday, I was on my way to my after school chemistry class by taking the subway. But as I was going closer to the ticket machine, I saw a man around his 40s/50s asking people for money. Following my parent's rule of "don't talk to strangers," I tried to avoid him...with a $10 bill in my hand. While I was buying my tokens, he showed up beside me. "Can I have a token?" said the stranger opening his hand out. In his hand were a bunch of nickels, dimes, and pennies. He had around 50 cents, $2.50 off. I wanted to get away from him so I started to say a bunch of things that didn't even make sense to me. "Sorry, I don't have change," or "No, no, no" and ran off with 3 extra tokens in hand.
When I got into the subway, I started thinking what I just did. I started asking questions like, "How will he get home?" "What about his family?" or "I wonder what happened to him?" I was regretting not giving him the token. I couldn't sacrifice my ice cappuccino (that I later had) for that token.
Everyday, as we go on with our daily lives, we pass by hundreds of strangers. When we see someone that's not the "average" or "normal" human being, we try to avoid them. We have our own personal bubble we protect 24/7. Let me ask you guys this: If there was only 1 seat left between two strangers in a subway or bus, would you go seat there or just stand? Whenever we pass by someone, he or she could've been our future best friend, co-worker, boyfriend/girlfriend, and more. Instead we just go on with our daily lives. The person we might be standing next to in a public place could be going through a heart break, depression, money problems or a disease. Yet we don't know because we hide ourselves behind fear. Fear of coming out of our safety net.
Now I'm not saying that we should all go talk to every random stranger we meet in public. But when someone asks us something, we should give them a nice response with a warm smile unlike that "wtf why are you talking to me" look. Smile because you might make another stranger's day a little brighter.
[Hohoho my reality perspective post]
ReplyDeleteYou are right Christie, we should be more aware of other people. I feel like we should try to put ourselves in the shoes of everyone we meet and try imagining their situation.
In the sense, that we never really know what is going on in someones life, but we always seem to make up a stereotypical assumption based on their appearances
I don't think there is an "average" or "normal" human being =S