Several years ago, I went Christmas shopping at the outdoor Gateway Mall in Salt Lake City. I wasn’t happy about it. There were a million people there and it was freezing cold. I had three goals: get to my store as fast as possible, buy some stuff as fast as possible, and leave as fast as possible.
As I speed-walked to my store, I noticed a homeless man begging on the corner. He was in a T-shirt that hung off his boney body. A T-shirt! It was freezing! As I reached the entrance of the store, I saw a tall man in a beanie ask the homeless man in passing, “What size coat do you wear?” The homeless man replied, “Large.”
I went into my store, did my thing, grabbed hot chocolate for me and the homeless man, and when I came back out, I saw the man in the beanie hand the homeless man a brand new, thick black coat.
That’s about when I burst into tears. My heart melted from the inside out. I wasn’t bothered by the millions of people or the cold anymore.
You know, not long ago, I found myself shaking my head in misery at the current state of the world. But then I started watching short, little history documentaries and I realized—the problems we have now, and the super evil people we have now, have existed pretty much since the dawn of humanity. You want to know what we haven’t always had?
An abundance of genuinely good people.
That’s right. I believe that the people that exist right now, are some of the best people to have ever existed. I feel like they’ve been growing exponentially in number within the last 200-300 years, and the more of them there are, the more empathy spreads throughout the world. The more hearts are changed. The more freedoms we gain. The more true and genuine progress we make. The more hope is restored. The more people are literally saved from the hells that they live in. And these good people are everywhere! They’re your friends, your neighbors—they’re in your mirror. With all the problems we have, these are, hands down, the best times to be living in, because we are surrounded by so many empathetic, kind, brave and genuinely good people.
I’m so comforted by this. I now see everything with a hope-filter.
Where Rose Writes Very True Stories 