Okay, I get it. We've all been there. We're in a store or a parking lot and we see some money laying loose on the floor or ground. Hey, our lucky day right?
Perhaps, but its someone else's unlucky day. That bill you just picked up? May have been the only money the person who undoubtedly dropped accidentally had. They may have walked through the store in a sweat, calculating in their head how they could get the most groceries (not snacks, not junk--but actual FOOD) for that money you now considered yourself lucky to find. How that person paused to count and add the tally one last time before heading to the cashier, praying they didn't count wrong and be embarrassed by not only the meagerly desperate purchases, but being shamed to not being able to buy the sad collection of goods that would keep them from going hungry for as long as possible...
because that money you're now using to buy cookies, candy or soda because it was found money?
Was all the money they had.
If you've never been there, trust me, you don't want to be. I have. And now that I have found myself without employment and only holding on to hopes of another one to happen ASAP because my funds are pretty much done, I am there once again.
I'm lucky in the fact I have just me. And a dog and cat. So it doesn't take much to get us by. But I've also been that single parent, with three screaming, hungry kids who didn't know where the meals for the next week would come from until HOPEFULLY some money came through too. To tell your child a dozen times NO to something they really wanted from the shelves of sticky, sweet goodness as you try to make one bag of beans and one bag of rice equal 2 or 3 meals. I've been that person that sat and cried in a car that was out of gas that you hoped would have lasted just a few more days and three children are hot and tired, just wanting to go home. I've also sat through long ice-filled cold winter days with no wood for the fire or electric in my house and no money to get either one. Curled up under a blanket and telling myself--just have to make it a few days, it can't stay this bad, that long.
On the flip side--I've also been the one that offered to pay for someone who didn't have the money or enough to pay what they quite apparently needed to get with their children looking at the boxes of mac n'cheese and the cans of beans like it was gold, because they were hungry. I've pulled over and given rides as well as changed tires for those that needed it on the side of the road, turning down the held out money in exchange for my kindness.
I have always believed--you get what you give. And always will.
But today--I was an out of work author, who was counting my pennies to just get a few things at the store and making my meager saving last as long as it could until my next 9-5 job came along. (Funny, being a popular author with a fan base doesn't get you free food....:) ) I was the one that got to the check out only to realize the bills I brought in with me had somehow escaped my pocket. Chances are it happened when I frantically pulled my phone out of my pocket in hopes it was a job calling only to find out it was a bill collector.
Sure I looked all over the store and of course I checked at the office to see if anyone had turned in the money. The lady behind the window laughed and told me that she had worked there for 7 years and not once had anyone turned in cash they had found.
A bit of faith in humanity...lost.
What's the point you ask? Not really sure. But just remember, when you think you've had a streak of good luck? Consider what bad luck you may have created for someone else.
Wouldn't the world be a great thing if we would call the kindness and honesty of strangers as faith...and we wouldn't have to count so much on luck.
Because luck swings both ways.
Take care and be good to someone who just might need it.
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