Yesterday morning, after lamenting the trials he’d experienced prior to arriving at work, my boss commented, “You know, I try to keep perspective. I try to keep in mind that somewhere, there’s someone wishing they were having my bad morning.”
I appreciated the sentiment of his idea – that there were people all over the world facing far worse than he was, wishing that their biggest problem was bad traffic or car trouble or sleeping through an alarm. I had no idea just how much his words would ring true to me by the end of the day. But as our Monday unfolded, I was faced first with the not entirely unexpected but still saddening passing of a coworker’s mother, followed of course by the bombings of the Boston Marathon. The news trickled into us, and we first learned that there were explosions at the finish line of the race, then that people were gravely injured, and then that there had been fatalities. As the afternoon gave way to evening, there was nothing whatsoever about my day that could seem bad in comparison to what was going on in Boston, or in the home of my coworker as he coped with loss.
I continually find myself horrified at the violence that’s becoming more and more commonplace in this country. Anywhere we go – to the airport, to school, to the movies, to run marathons – we run the risk of someone harming us. I don’t understand it. I look at all the violence and I feel like I’m in a world I can’t possibly comprehend. But then, I see the people who are working to help the injured, to aid the victims, and that sentiment, that feeling of community and helping those in need…that I understand.
There are some bad people in this world. There are people who are mentally ill who don’t or can’t get the help they need, so they end up doing terrible things. There are people who do awful deeds in the name of a god that they believe they are serving loyally. And there are evil people, people who do cruel and sick things because it brings them pleasure to do so. What comforts me is that there are also a lot of good people in this world too. There are people who run towards gunshots and explosions to save others, at their own expense. There are people who give of themselves, their time, their money, to make a difference for the better. The good people bring me hope that there’s more to expect from our future than just senseless hate and violence.
There’s a quote I love from the movie Where the Heart Is, and even though the situation in the movie surrounding the quote is totally different than the situation we face in the aftermath of the Boston bombings, I still found myself mulling it over yesterday and thought it worthy of sharing.
“You tell them, we’ve all got meanness in us. But we’ve got good in us too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. And that’s why we’ve got to make sure we pass it on.”