Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Act of kindness or not?

I was thinking about acts of kindness a few times this week and whether they count if they are done sort of begrudgingly. There is a spot in my commute from school where there are only 2 lanes of traffic. One lane is always backed way up with people waiting to merge onto the Yellowhead. There are so many times that someone zooms past everyone in the other lane and then signals to get in at the front of the line- blocking the other lane while doing so. Every fiber of my being tells me "we are NOT under ANY circumstances, letting this guy in!" It's really a matter of principle! I really feel like by letting this person in I'm losing in some way, or enabling them to keep doing it again. Of course there are the poor people stuck behind this guy so I guess by letting them in it could be an act of kindness to those drivers, but still if I let him in and I'm saying "your an idiot" to them in my head do I count it?
A garbage bag in the alley a few houses down from me was ripped open last week and there was nasty garbage all over the alley. I walk my dog that way 3 times a day and he would always manage to eat some of this grossness. At first I figured that the owners of the garbage didn't know it was ripped open, but then as new bags showed up I realized they had no plans to clean it up. Working in a vet clinic I see the effects of dogs with "garbage guts" and couldn't stand to know my dog managed to eat some every time we passed. I bit the bullet and went to clean it up. The entire time I was cleaning I was cursing these people, and the fact that the majority of the garbage was cigarette butts, greasy take out and rotting chicken bits didn't help. Was this really an act of kindness or does that fact that I got no satisfaction out of doing it cancel it out? Do I just need to work on my own enlightenment? Hmmm. What do you guys think?

Andrea Prince
andnowlikeyoumeanit.blogspot.ca

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