Deciding to Help

 (from a student online 2020 summer 2015)

In our current society, random acts of kindness are almost nonexistent. We live in narcissistic society that is only worried about themselves and nobody else. I have fallen victim of this many times without thinking. This assignment has taught me to get out of the thinking of myself, and put the focus on serving others and making other people’s lives better by our one act of kindness. Some people have experienced random acts of kindness such as paying for the person’s order in front of you in the drive thru or asking if the person behind you in line would like to go first, since they have less stuff in the cart. Things like this don’t happen that frequently anymore. As I said before we are too focused on ourselves and our problems we cannot turn around and notice that the people around us need just the same help or if not more. We should as a society rise up and realized others before ourselves. I tried to focus on the problem of one of friends for my mission’s project.

For my Secret Mission I helped out a fellow friend and classmate. She is only 17 and a junior in college, so you can imagine the struggle she has to face. We became friends in high school, and a mutual friend came to my roommate and me asking, if we knew anybody, who could give her a place to live for a couple months until she can find a place of her own. My Roommate and I decided to take her into our home and support her as much as we could. My roommate and I took more shifts at work to pay the bills since she didn’t have a job or any money. This wasn’t easy for anybody in the house. We helped her find a place of her own and eventually she moved out into her own apartment. But the last couple of weeks, I saw, as she posted on Facebook, she was having a hard time buying food and living on her own; since her family cannot help her out as much since her dad just got remarried and has three more kids living in the house. Since she has moved out I have tried to help her out as much as I can, but I have bills and have to provide food for myself. I am currently moving to a different apartment and I saw that I had a surplus of food that was just going to waste; since I work forty plus hours a week and cannot cook as much as I would like. So I contacted her asking what she needed and she said anything and everything is appreciated. As I was cleaning out the cabinets, I realized that I could have taken all the food to the homeless shelter downtown, to feed more in need people, but if I would have overlooked the fact that one of my friends is in need. Friends are the people that are there for you when nobody else is, so it would have been wrong of me not to give her the food. I not only gave her food but I offered, when I get payed, to take her grocery shopping to get necessities like fruits and vegetables. When she came to pick up the food from my apartment, she was so appreciative and thankful for this, she even said, “Nobody has ever done anything like this for me.” This saddened me because how could a society be so cold to ignore the fact that there is so many hungry people, yes even in our country, and nothing can be done because either they make too much money or their parents do.

From this experience, I learned it does not take much to enhance another person’s life positively. In order to do so, you must go out of your way to do something you would not necessarily do on any given day. Just by giving her food she can no longer worry, for a couple weeks or so, where her next meal is coming from. I am grateful that I was able to participate in this opportunity. I enjoyed seeing her a little less stressed for a while. 1I would like to thank you, Dr. Soldani, if it was not for you I would have probably just took the food the shelter and not think about the effect that could have had on a close friend. When I read this in the Syllabus, I was confused about this assignment and how to go about this but once I grasped the fact that I was supposed to enhance someone’s life positively, I knew exactly what I would do. I am realizing now that we, as a society, should be doing these kind of things on a daily basis. Our society would be completely different if we did so. We wouldn’t have the blaming and shaming of people but accepting the people for who they are. This assignment has greatly influenced my life in a positive way, I no longer want to be the stereotypical American who worries of themselves but one whom worries about the people around them. I can say that by giving food that was sitting in a cabinet, would enhance another person’s life in a positive way. This is a unique assignment I have never had to do, but I can say this is one of my all-time favorite assignments of my college career thus far. It not only enhanced others’ lives but it enhanced my own. I am beyond grateful for you, my professor, to opening up my eyes to see bigger and better opportunities around me. This is like the tory of your book I read, when you met Alex you didn’t know the effects he would have on you, but after the experience was over you realized what a true blessing he was in your life. I could say this assignment had that same effect on me. 1Thank you, Dr. Soldani.