Looking to Help

Transcript

I was thinking about being the helper like in the famous Mr. Roger’s speech were he’s talking about looking at the news when there’s some disaster or something happening.

There’s even like videos where someones about to jump off a rail and someone pulls them off or something like that. Or someone falls on a track and gets pull of by someone else.

This kind of thing when we look for the helpers, that brightness in the world. The conscious effort to make things better even when things have gone badly or tragic.

A couple of months ago I was downtown by my apartment in the center if Guadalajara.\\

Walking past the temple and there’s an old woman of maybe 70 walking out of the temple and she tripped and fell.

I saw these two maybe three people helping her. I thought maybe she was ok and even so a fellow on the corner runs over ready to help.

In my mind there’s some thought like oh she’s already being helped I don’t need to go over there and help. I don’t want to embarrass myself which is a funny thing to think.

I see this guy so ready to help. He runs over with enthusiasm looking for the opportunity to help a stranger in need. I thought wow, that’s not embarrassing.

There is nothing embarrassing about what that guy did.

That’s pure heart. I have respect for that guy.

Today coming back from the gym riding a bicycle just on the corner there’s a lot of cars piled up. Not a crash, it looked like a crash from back where I was riding.

I get closer to the corner and I see this fellows pickup truck has got a flat tire or the engine is not working or whatever.

A couple of the security guards from the Banamex on the corner bank behind him were pushing with him.

So I ask, hey do you need some help?

And they say YES!

So I jump on my bike and get behind and start pushing. A bit extra hard because I was coming back from the gym.

And if you watch or do the course with professor Lori Santos about the Science of Wellbeing. One of the most important things she talks about very early in the course are random acts of kindness. If you do these things they have a great impact on wellbeing.

Of course it is nice. I mean imagine if like say one of the worst scenarios you could be in, depressed and hopeless. You don’t believe there’s any good in the world, that it’s just chaos and meaninglessness and something bad happens and you trip.

Imagine what happens that day, when a random stranger runs up to you with enthusiasm like hey are you okay, do you need help?

What kind of change do you think that would have on the course of a life when someone is hopeless and they see the glimmer of hope, finger of god shining out from the clouds.

And we think yes this is something special. We all have the power to look for opportunities to help and to act on them without being embarrassed about good intentions or enthusiasm.

Running to help a stranger. Amazing.

Thank you for looking for the helpers, thanks for looking for opportunities to help and thank you for acting on good intentions. Your heart is so big and full and deserves to be even fuller with happiness and egoless pride that comes from helping out a fellow man or fellow human.