“Give what you have. To someone, it may be better than what you dare to think.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
I was next in line to her at the supermarket the other day.
She’d picked some packets of juice, a few snacks, antibacterial cream and a pack of spaghetti.
With her money in her clenched fist, she approached the teller who scanned the items and told her the total.
The mention of the total price of the items flustered her. She must have come to the shop with knowledge of the price of the items the last time she bought them.
The woman counted the money in her hand but it was not enough to pay for the items so she had to drop some.
“Remove the spaghetti, take out 2 juice and 2 munch it (puffy snack), these ones should last them till the week ends.”
At this point, it was obvious that she was shopping snacks for her children’s lunch pack.
These are basic family needs, not wants or anything luxurious.
From the other till, a young man had been observing her.
Dreadlocks, headphones, oversized hoodie and slacks, he cut the picture of the kind of person society would easily dismiss as a ‘bad boy’.
He came over to whisper something in her ear. Her face immediately lit up and beamed with smiles.
“He has offered to pay for the spaghetti so add it back,” she told the teller gleefully.
That little act of kindness may have made it possible for the children of that woman to have something to eat for lunch when they returned from school that day.
Times are hard and people are going through a lot, physically, emotionally and psychologically.
Many families can no longer afford to eat as the high inflation has eroded the value of money in their pockets.
Food inflation has more than doubled in the last seven years.
People have increasingly become dependent, having to fall back on family and friends for help to get by.
Hardly any day passes without the average person getting calls from at least one person, asking for money just for the next meal, transport fare to keep an interview appointment or just any kind of help at all.
It is these same tough times that made online borrowing applications with their extremely high interest rates attractive to a lot of people, who have now been embarrassed by the shylock lenders for failing to pay back the loans as agreed.
As a result of the difficult times, people are frustrated, angry and their mental health hangs in a balance.
It is therefore not unusual to find people getting angry over seemingly little things. That’s because, the built up anger is looking for an outlet and once they find one, they unleash the anger on whoever or whatever it is.
I was at the market about two weeks ago to fix an appliance and an old woman in her late sixties maybe, came to where I sat with other traders, waiting for the repairer.
She appeared to be in a pensive mood. After exchanging pleasantries, she said something was disturbing her and she needed us to help her. Thinking it was money she may have wanted, the traders dismissed her without caring to listen to her concern.
As she made to leave, I called her back to find out what it was. She brought out a little telephone handset from her bag, saying she’s been unable to make any call for nearly a week but could receive calls and that she was in the market looking for where to fix the phone, as she thought it had gone bad. I quickly remembered that the Nigeria Communications Commission (NCC) had directed operators to bar phone lines of subscribers yet to link their NIN to their lines and I made effort to explain this to her in a way she’ll understand.
The old woman was relieved and visibly happy because she didn’t have to spend any money fixing an inexistent problem, all she needed to do was go to her provider with evidence of her NIN and have her line restored.
She thanked me profusely and went on her way.
When you’re kind to people, apart from the joy it brings to them, it also leaves you, the helper, with a feeling of fulfilment.
Kindness is often spontaneous. A lot of people often feel a need to be of help but talk themselves out of it.
The moment you feel the need to help, ignore the inner dialogue that tries to tell you why you shouldn’t help, why your help will not be appreciated etc and just help. Each time you do this you’ll be surprised how significant what you did is for the person at the receiving end.
So every chance you get to be of help to someone, do not hesitate. It could be as little as smiling back at them in a manner that says “I’ve got you”, it could be by sending them food supplies, it could be by picking a bill here and there, it could be by providing a listening ear for them to give vent to their emotions or a shoulder for them to cry on.
