Outside Your Bubble

Despite the cruel, violent and paranoid world often portrayed by the media, I feel as is still plenty of hope left for humanity if one is only willing to look. Just today, another woman in my building who has previously parked in my parking spot when she wasn't supposed to came over to apologize and give me quite a pricey gift. While an apology was nice, she really went the extra mile and it made me appreciate that sometimes people really can just be kind to others. Whether or not people are kind just because they want to feel good about themselves is perhaps a more philosophical topic for another time and another blog.

The point of this short blog was simply to say that I feel there are still good people out there willing to help out. Whether is the person who gets you a wad of tissues when you spill coffee all over your desk in a lecture or the person who gives you a (seemingly) random gift, there is still good in the world despite what the news might indicate. As a more general critique, I feel as if the news tends to downplay these simple acts of human kindness and people helping others to devote more times to stories of violence and hatred. In turn, this scares people and only breeds distrust and skepticism. While the media should report the truth, it should be as untainted as possible.

One could argument that it would be trivial for the media to focus on such seemingly small acts. Which is a sad point in itself  in that perhaps I think it is rare for someone to even do something kind to another random person. Have we become so isolated in our circle of friends/family that we can't reach out and be kind to one another? If people refuse to connect with one another for reasons other than social/material gain, how can we ever expect to understand each other and move ahead as a race?