I'm A Helper, How About YOU?!

I haven’t made an entry in a while, as I felt that I needed to have a strong willingness to write another blog entry. I didn’t want my thoughts to become just a weekly diary entry; I wanted them to be real, raw and relevant. (That alliteration was pretty good, and unplanned, haha). As I’m sure everyone knows, the #BostonMarathon bombings are currently rocking the media and the American people. I instantly felt the typical responses of “things like this should never happen, what is this world coming to, and who in their right mind would do this?”. This gives way to many negative thoughts in general about this world and the people in it, but I refuse to be that way and I challenge y’all not to give in to those pessimistic feelings, perspectives and overall outlooks. 

A quote that I keep seeing is from my favorite childhood TV character, Mr. Rogers from Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood: “When I was a boy and saw scary things in the news, my mother would say to me ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” I’m sure many people have seen this shared all over every social media page and every post about this tragedy. Seeing images of people running towards the mayhem and helping injured away, hearing stories of marathon runners continuing to run to the hospitals to donate blood, seeing Google’s set up for finding people and providing information and hearing stories of the residents of #Boston opening their homes to those who needed shelter, food and a place to decompress. Those stories hit my heart more than the explosions did to begin with.

When I see these great examples of humanity, it helps to take away some of the pain of the tragedy. It helps me to see the good in the world and the good in MOST people. It also inspires me to be one of those “helpers.” Mr. Rogers started his show to put a little good in the world. While it is a small offering in the “grand scheme of the world” it was his and it touched many more lives than I think even he could have dreamed. 

That is what I hope to do as a good person, good citizen and overall good human being. Even if I can’t invent something life changing or discover something that will help millions of people, I do have control over who I DO choose to help out of those that I can. Even though everything in this world isn’t wonderful, a lot of it IS wonderful and CAN BE if people choose to make it that way. Choose to make the world wonderful. Do that in your everyday decisions, actions and words. I certainly will!!