My Gift. Final Draft.

"Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile."
-Albert Einstein

We are all guilty of a crime. The kind of crime nobody even notices the significance of who is affecting. It is the crime that everyone has been guilty of but yet nobody gets convicted. I know you who are reading this are guilty too; even I am guilty. How often have you walked passed someone crying whether it was a child or someone your age and did not speak a word? Did you ever stop to think the hell that they might be going through? Maybe their mother just passed away or maybe they found out that they have an illness, which might end them. I am sure it broke your heart just seeing another human in pain and you thought about how bad you feel for that person. Notice how you just thought and did not speak a word to them. You didn’t even sit down by them seeing if there is anything that you can do to help. How often have you driven past a car with their panic lights flashing and they are just sitting in the car? Did you stop by to help? Some of you may have, but how many times, once? You always have your phone on you, couldn't you let that person use it for a couple minutes to call for help or are you too paranoid that they would steal it from you? You hear all this hype about how these immigrants should not have the same rights as "native" American citizens. Just like these people who are immigrating now, we are all immigrants. The only difference is about 250 years. Our families were all in the same position but did they discriminate them back then? Did they deport them or did they welcome them? We hear these “immigrants” referred to the minority but if they are the minority, why would we care so much? Do they have value to you? Do they mean anything to you or are they just a nuisance to your life even if they leave you alone? How often have you walked passed a homeless man on a street corner holding up a sign that reads something along the lines of ANYTHING HELPS? Did you think that all he wants is money for crack and booze? For God's sake, the sign said anything helps, you could have ran into McDonald's and bought him a dollar menu hamburger or into Wal-Mart and bought him a candy bar. You are barely spending any money for that one item. He says anything helps, do you believe it? Have you tried giving him food? No, I am sure most people haven't. Did you even stop by and ask him questions or did you walk passed him as though he were invisible, just another cement block along the wall he is leaning against? When you walk passed him, did you avoid eye contact because you were afraid that he would mug you? How often do you put aside some time to help somebody else feel important; maybe somebody who doesn't have family, maybe somebody who is crying and just needs a shoulder to cry on, a person to listen to them, someone who cares, maybe somebody who just needs a simple phone call to have someone come get him or her. Is this the American Dream that our ancestors have sacrificed and died for? Did they die for us to become a selfish and ignorant society? Did they dive up everything for those people to be ignored? Did they die for the better of mankind, the better of their generations? Do you think that your ancestors would walk passed someone who is holding that sign and ignore them when they probably were homeless when they first came to America? Would you walk passed your own brother if he were holding that sign and ignore him or would you help him? I am a strong believer that people should step outside of their comfort zone, out of their safe haven, and really try to put themselves in others' shoes. I am aware that you personally cannot feel another persons’ pain the way that they do but if you can just see yourself having those problems, challenges, struggles and tried to feel the most small fraction of their pain, it will change your outlook completely. I hope that someday the people that surround us will try to see other people for people and not just objects. I hope that someday people will acknowledge that some people do not have it made as good as they do. I hope that you can go pay it forward and pass this message on. I'm starting this now, I'm not going to walk passed people as though they are invisible, if anything helps, anything does help, and I commit to acknowledging people for their validity.

My Gift

The gift I would like to give to someone is the gift of reality. So few people have grasped that idea that they are not the only people on this planet. There are so many other people, so many other problems and they are just to confined in one place to realize it. How often have you driven past a car with their panic lights flashing? How often have you walked passed a homeless man on a street corner and not said anything and avoided contact? Did you stop to ask them any questions or did you just walk passed them as though they were invisible? How often do you put aside some time for someone else that you haven't met and did some service? I am sure very few people have done such things. If there was one thing I could give to anyone, it would be reality.