The story of the Day...How to Change Your World.

The story of the day… So Sunday I was driving back from my morning of perusing at the outdoor swap shop and I stopped to buy a Gatorade at the store… handed the clerk the money and the clerk with a smile gave me my change which I put safely in my pocket. So I get in the truck start driving to a stoplight where I see a man on the street going car to car asking for change without any luck….he walks to the car in front of me and the man in the car doesn’t even roll down his window, but the man asking for money smiles anyway... and now moves to my truck…. I’m thinking how am I going to handle this, here we go again another person asking for change.... My windows are already down, so he comes to my passenger window and with a smile asks “ Do you have any change? then says, "it doesn’t have to be anything big a nickel a quarter anything you got would help out?” So I go into my conditioned response not really looking at him and I look around my truck and at my cup holder and say “Nope, sorry about that, don’t have any”. Though in my head I said I’ve got change in my pocket, but man this guy is probably going to probably get drunk or something worst with the change he collects...all the conditioned responses and preconceived notions we each create for the many seen on the streets…So the man says, “No problem man, maybe “next time?” So I say “yaaa next time”….So the light turns green and it dawns upon me why didn’t I just give him the change I had in my pocket?… then I realized it’s because I’ve become so numb to the fact there are so many homeless in south Florida and he’s one of the mass of many …then I think geeeees, he could have probably used that for food or something ...and my guilt side chimes in on me and I think really Mike come onnnn you should have just given him the change?...When is the “next time” I said going to happen when I see that same guy???....Then I think of the most important question, why has this individual become so part of the many that I didn’t see him as an individual but as the mass of homeless?....I get so into my thoughts....and think well I’ll help out the next guy the “next time” for sure…but it still bothers me, But I already passed him so I just keep going… I’m about a half mile away and I remember that story of the starfish and the young girl and dad comes into mind… you know the one, 100 starfish wash on shore, little girl throws back one, father says there are hundreds and it didn’t make a difference and little girl says it did to that one…and Woah, it hit me!!!…So I make a Uturn over four lanes of traffic thinking this is ridiculous, what am I doing? Pull 4 blocks pass where he had been standing since now there was a line of traffic at the light, then dodge oncoming speed demons and one tractor trailer, make another 4 lane turn and think “this guy is probably not even going to be there now”…LOL…but sure enough he was, and again I see no one even roll down their window, he didn’t even get one person to donate to him... then I realize man it’s really really hot outside and this guy is sweating up a storm on this street and he looks beat but he’s still out here, trying his best to get change…That’s when I noticed his yellow and white striped shirt, reddish hair and a red beard, his somewhat bent over stature and walk, his age around early 40’s , things I completely didn’t see prior and that after every rejection he still smiled and was friendly to every person in their cars…Then in my mind I go how hard would that be, to be out in this heat going car to car...plus this guy is probably someone’s brother or possibly father, definitely son, how did I miss all these things…and then I realized maybe that’s why the world is so messed up, because we are forgetting to look at the individuals… we let people in countries starve because we see them as a huge group of starving people, or we let individuals die on both sides of war because we see them as a group of soldiers instead of the individual with a family at home or as a nation with one bad leader instead of the individual person who only lives in the country but their family just got bombed and killed...we have been conditioned to only see people as a group, “the poor” “the rich” “the Muslim” “the Christian” “Democrat” Republican” it makes it easier to justify our inactions or actions as "them not me" and not acknowledge that in reality we each are just individuals same pains, same joys same fundamental individual needs, for when we get grouped we lose our humanity to think as each other as individually important…and yes folks my mind does think this way at traffic lights….LOL…. the man walks up to my window once again and he recognizes my face and has a bit of a pleasantly surprised look… I say “Hey man what’s your name?.. He says “My name is Sam” and I said "My name is Mike and Sam, It’s the “next time”… and to which he smiles ;) ....Lesson for today 1. Change yourself and you change your world.