Today I had a wonderful surprise outside my door. My shipment of vitamins was there.
Why was that a surprise? I thought that I had lost those vitamins forever. You see they were delivered when I wasn’t home, and when I got home they were gone. I figured they were stolen since I live in front of a bus stop.
Yet they were there. How did this happen? It turns out that one of my kind neighbors saw that the package was outside and kept it until I was back. Isn’t that kind of them? This isn’t the first time they have done this, but I never asked nor expected it.
I try to be a good neighbor as well. I give them their privacy as best as I am able, and I am quiet and wear headphones when I want to listen to music. I think that it helps to be civil and kind whenever possible, and often when you do that, you get respect and benefits back. Even if the vitamins were lost, I would just chalk it up to experience and reorder them.
I have chalked many losses up to experience. It doesn’t make me mad to waste money, it just helps me understand reality better. If people need to steal to survive, they have pity and not condemnation. I certainly do agree that people deserve what they bought, but in all honesty, we have all gotten things we don’t deserve and we don’t complain then do we?
For example, I have shared examples where I have gotten far more in life than I asked for due to the kindness of others. I think one of the most beautiful things about the human spirit is its capacity for forgiveness and generosity. Strangely, we think of things as material things all the time, when it is the emotional/intellectual/spiritual things that make us happy.
Look around you and I bet you have benefited from the kindness of others today. I will thank the neighbor when I see her.