You Don’t Need A Reason

So yesterday as I was walking up the busy subway stairs of New York City there was a woman, maybe a little older than me, maybe, trying to figure out how she was going to get a stroller with her baby in it up the steps by herself while her two year old son was running ahead of her. She had definitely been there for a minute prior to me even getting to the stairs and the first thing that came to my mind was, ‘no one realized this woman needs help?’.

As soon as I saw her I quickly said, ‘Do you need help with this stroller?’, and she replied, ‘Yes’, immediately. Why was I the first person out of hundreds of people coming out of the subway to realize this lady just needed sixty seconds of help? Did it seem too much to some? Did it seem to get in the way of their ever busy and ever important lifestyle to take the time to notice others?

I find that I always notice people around me, I understand the needs of others, because we can’t do everything by ourselves — but so many people don’t take the little bit of time to notice others who may need a hand. I know this post sounds kind of goody-goodyish (those who know me know that I am definitely NOT a kiss ass — I refuse to suck up to anyone) but I wanted to kind of put this out there. If you have a million groceries in your hands, wouldn’t you want someone to open the door for you? If you JUST ran out of money on your metro card, wouldn’t you want a stranger to tell you, ‘it’s okay, you can use mine for this ride’? If you couldn’t reach something on a shelf, wouldn’t it be nice for someone to help you get that amazing box of cereal that God damnit you just can’t reaching the effing thing?

It would be so nice. We don’t do this enough for each other at all. Of course, I can relate this back to my eating disorder days – because that’s when I needed the most help and outreach. But those times when I was so down and out that I didn’t even know myself — just a simple phone call from my friend would make my entire week. I think it’s sincerely sad that when someone tries to help me with something or is actually nice to me at the customer service line I am more shocked than anything. I don’t know — maybe I am wrong — but it seems like the world is more bitter and selfish than ever. I can’t get by in this world without a hand or two from other people so I have to imagine that it has to be the same for others, not just me. When someone at the bank is nice to me, tells me to have a nice day — I say it back to them, and I mean it sincerely.

There’s this whole thing called karma that I hear about quite often and I’d like to believe that the main entity of karma — that what goes around comes around — is sometimes true. Yeah, I’m talking to you ex boyfriend #3. Kidding. Not. Anyway — so I kind of think it’d be nice to challenge ourselves to even just compliment someone if we can’t find someone to help out. ‘Nice manicure’, ‘that eyeliner really brings out your eyes’, ‘that’s such a good idea! let’s do that this weekend!’. Let’s psyche each other up, help each other out. I’m the first to admit that I can’t do everything myself. So you help me – I help you – you help others and we can get more places than we probably thought.