My Reform Jewish friends often talk about a concept called Tikkun Olam (repairing the world) but the roots of that idea are Chassidic, and more than I can explain in a comment here, but basically all acts of kindness have value as your words expressed. They bring more light into what can seem to be a very dark world.
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Agreed here! Especially in times like now, where things seem pretty harsh. I think it brings out our own humanity and can bring a tiny bit of light to someone else. As you said, the world can seem very dark, brutal, and uncaring. We are the ones that can lighten it up a bit by just being kind to someone else.
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Given all the problems various churches have I always think of this as Touched Inappropriately by an Angel
I quite agree. Witnessing acts of kindness towards myself or someone else always make make feel much better about life for the rest of the day. It’s why I liked when I could take public transit to work. You could be certain to see (and on occasion, do) at least one or more acts of helpfulness or kindness a week.
I still remember a situation when a young women of about 12-13 got separated from her grandmother (I presume) in a crowded subway, leaving the grandmother behind. The young girl panicked (she was either a visitor or a recent immigrant - her English was not good).
It took about 30 seconds (longer than it took for me to make it across the car to help) for 4 random strangers (to each other) to organize and send one back to the station with the grandmother, another to notify the authority at the next station and two women to calm the girl down and accompany her off at the next station to wait for her grandmother.
Made me feel good about my fellow Torontonians for weeks, and to realize that that sort of helpfulness in an unexpected crisis is not the exception, it’s almost always the rule. (I’ve never seen anyone wait more than 2-3 people for help with a baby carriage down stairs, etc.)
It’s the continuous struggles (which, to be honest, are the majority and the most serious) that we often fall down upon. But I’ll take a steady stream of signs that my fellow human beings are decent folks, especially when things look grim.
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I think it’s amusing that so many voice their "McD ‘s food is crap opinions,’ as preface to the “I was driving through the drive thru line at McD’s” etc.
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Sometimes, we all like to eat crap.
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This is what got me. The first thing to spring to mind was one of those “Newton’s Cradle” desk toys, just with 167 balls instead of 5.
Sure, $20 in a 3rd world country would go further, so you might feel really good about yourself, but if you give to a charity only maybe $2 will actually get there. $20 given directly to someone who needs it here might help more than $18 paid to administrative fees and $2 shipped around the world to someone who needs it, perhaps in the form of clothing for someone who has plenty of clothes but no food or vice-versa.
Directly giving someone what they need at the time, or just money so that they can get whatever they need, is inherently more efficient than paying middlemen to give people whatever the middlemen choose to give whenever they feel like giving it. This is not to say that charities are bad, just inherently far less efficient than a direct transfer. So if you want to improve the most lives the most, you should give directly.
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I can’t believe that there’s so many people carping on about people being generous to each other.
This is why we can’t have nice things.
I think anyone who sees this as some sort of terrible imposition ought to go away and work on being a better person.
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I also agree with you.
I wonder if this sort of thing (the super-long pay-it-forward chain) is more likely to happen in a small town like Scottsburg, where more people know each other, than in a big city. I looked it up: this is a town of 6,662 people as of 2014. I mean, there are high schools bigger than that.
(This means, by the way, that somewhere between 2 and 4 percent of the town’s population took part in that day’s pay-it-forward game. Maybe the bigger story here is what percent of the town is eating at this one particular McDonald’s?)
Also, while I don’t want to be cynical and shit all over a small bit of people acting nicely to one another, it would be nice if McDonald’s would respond to the pay-it-forward phenomenon by, oh, I don’t know, maybe not stiffing their employees and urging them onto welfare to make up the pay gap.
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And Walmart and pretty much any large corporation whose base level employees make anywhere in the vicinity of minimum wage, but that’s a whole other topic.
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Or they could have been the one person in line who actually could use help.
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Wouldn’t that be breaking the chain?
Well sure, it starts organically, but that doesn’t mean it’s not being continued out of a sense of obligation. Some nice lady wants to pay for someone else’s food. That’s fine. By the time you get down the line far enough though, I don’t think people are doing it so much out of good will, and more doing it because they don’t want to be the asshole who takes advantage of the situation.
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Maybe you’d feel good, but I’d be horrified. I just want to pay for my food and go. I buy the food I want and can reasonably afford. As soon as someone else is paying for it, you don’t want to spend too much and take advantage. Or, you’re short on cash, in which case you can take your free meal and be the asshole who ended the chain, or risk the person behind you paying more than you can reasonably afford.
One person’s day brightening good deed is someone else’s social obligation nightmare. I’d rather not be unwillingly thrust into that situation when I just wanted a simple burger.
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Hmmm…
I stated that part of the sentiment almost exactly, as part response to a Debbie Downer complaining about how the gesture is meaningless.
But at no point did I say or even imply that I was personally going through the McD’s drive-through myself; I haven’t eaten there in years, though I try not to judge people who still do.
I concur. If a person’s automatic response to any piece of good news is to immediately see the downside, that makes me kinda hafta wonder if their serotonin/dopamine levels are too low…
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The comment had nothing to do with her act off kindness, simply the mess
numbers of posts that trash mcd’s flood etc, then proceed to describe the
other day when kids were screaming and it was a mess, etc., then my order
was wrong. Paying it forward is a good thing for all. Eating Mcd’s is a
personal choice.
I should have realized you were merely "observing " rather than purchasing
an item. A social experiment of sorts.
I wasn’t commenting on the process, it’ s great, it was directed towards
McdS reputation, those comments are all over redditt. Judging from the
nature of your response, that was a self diagnosis.
Have fun.
I had forgotten all about those. I remember my dad complaining about it whenever we went to the movies.
Don’t they do the same thing with other groups of seated people…like usually on Sunday?
Your comments to me seem a bit muddled, as if you are confused; so allow me to clarify:
I responded to this comment of yours:
Because the chosen phrasing was uncannily similar to my comment here:
I was acknowledging the other person’s opinion that the food at McD’s is not good, but then I went on to make my own point that the gesture is not meaningless simply because of the product involved.
Again, at no point did I ever state or imply that I was a patron of the establishment in question, or that I was personally involved in this story in any way.
Hopefully that clears up any remaining confusion for you.
Take care, now.
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