This disease is the most difficult to contract. It is contagious but the human body seems to defend it off pretty well with all its valour. Unlike other diseases, this one’s way different. People these days are so caught up in their own world, their own acts that they’ve forgotten the basics of everything.
When something or someone changes, another change comes into existence almost instantaneously to affect that person or thing. And the change which comes into existence, works within itself, evolves and designs itself in the best possible way to hit its target.
This is how anything malignant like bad company, virus and other organisms evolve when their hosts become stronger. Counter measures like medicines or just a talk with someone you know, help curb the problem but they don’t really help it entirely.
The only way that disease can be removed for good, is when you work towards it with dedication. Without dedication, it’s just another pill in your body or just another emotional talk with your friend or loved one and it’ll resurface pretty soon and this time it will be equipped with the technology to ward off the same pill or those talks.
Acts of humanity are contagious too. It’s just that negativity has a super awesome arsenal with tons of tricks up its sleeves and people fall prey to its spell very easily and links to the chain just keep adding!
When a stranger stares at you, it is all but natural for you to stare back at him/her. How many times out of 10 would you smile back? People seem to find smiling a much harder act to do than to abuse!
I don’t count myself out. I am yet another free host in this world, which’s swarming with diseases that would absolutely love to thrive inside you. I fall prey to it all the time, though not as often as others would. It would be unjust to degrade myself that much. I think I’ve evolved a tad little bit at least, when compared to the growth negativity around me has gone through..
Haha as much as I know that many of you would love to bail out of this page ‘cause this sounds just like any other boring “Get Positive” seminar or whatever, I’d force you to read this if I could!!
There are people like Narayanan Krishnan (click his name to know more) who dedicate their lives to just one cause—To HELP. Some help animals and some help preserving the Environment. Now, this is going to be a very offending question but I will ask it nevertheless—“Are you a part of any group which helps? If yes, do you really help?”. “Do you ever help people when you think or know you can?”. If the answer’s a yes, you are awesome. If the answer’s a no, I’d love to help you :D
You see an accident and you see a huddle around the person who is injured, do you stop by and check if all’s good? It is a disheartening fact but people gather around an injured person to know what happened. They’re not all that bothered about what may happen! You might want to call your local hospital and notify them about this and ask for an ambulance if that person is that badly injured. Call an ambulance and leave. People around that person will be equipped with the story to tell the paramedics as to what happened. You don’t have to know if you were the person who helped that person, but when you flip through your newspaper the next day, you won’t have to live with the conscience of not helping that person when you could have. You just saved some newspaper space too!! You saved a life and you saved paper!
Yeah right—These are basics and you know it. Everyone does.!! Right?
We are all so comfortable within our boundaries that we forget ourselves. We lose our identities and we become ‘not-so-human’. May be I’m inviting a lot of criticism and revolt but that isn’t new to me. I do it all the time. I’m a critic who revolts a lot. Bring it on! I deserve it :-). I find difficulty in understanding the fact that people are more than willing to abuse or hit someone for free than finding willingness to help someone for free. If you expect someone to help you when you’re in a difficult situation, you have to tune yourself to return the favour, most times in advance. Someone has to be the first helper- why can’t it be you? {I hate to preach—FYI :D}... Dismiss negativity(not all of it- you can’t be me! :P) and download a trial version of “I will help” and install it on yourself. Try it before you reject it. Once you do, you’ll be able to reconcile better with yourself and your acts. Trust me.
Helping is a disease too. It takes a while to grow. It’s so slow that it often ends up on the losing side unless you help it! And it isn’t all that difficult. You don’t have to go to an orphanage, you don’t have to treat the wounded, you don’t have to touch blood, you don’t have to house all the stray animals nor do you have to shell anything from your pocket for a good cause.
You can start off with small things. I’d like to list a few. I mean it! Just a couple.. No, a couple x 2 :P
-->If you drive/ride a vehicle and you’re within city limits or there is enough traffic, so much that you can see the road without your “high beam” switched ON, please switch to “low beam”. You’re a victim of high beam headlight glare and you know just how much it blinds and irritates, don’t you? Just because you can see the road, it doesn’t mean you can’t involve yourself in an accident. Your headlights may blind the person coming towards you and he may come crashing right into you or any vehicle next to you. It’s a terrible thing to happen and I’ve seen them happen. So, Remember—“SWITCH to LOW BEAM when on roads with fairly good lighting”. You’re helping yourself in that process too. We don’t live in Arabia. Fuel costs a bomb!
-->You see someone doing something which you can do very easily in no time and that person is taking a lifetime to do it, you may want to volunteer. I definitely don’t want you guys to take it literally and start pushing carts on the roads :D.
-->Smile! That’s it. It is infectious and it can do wonders. Almost always does. Or at least does a ‘W’ in WONDER :D. Not a bad deal huh?
-->You can donate your blood. Contact the red-cross and they’d be glad to take a unit of blood from you. What more? You get a free blood test and other results after the donation and you also get a red-cross card which entitles you to a unit of free blood if you or someone you know is in need of blood.
I can go on all day long but I’d only end up boring myself. That won’t ‘help’ me!!
There’s this friend of mine who drops people who ask for lift(hitchhikers). He never goes alone. His pillion seat is always occupied and it’s a stranger most times. Ask him and he’ll tell you he offers people a ride because he was offered a ride every day by someone he didn’t know of and there were many such people who offered him a ride when he hitchhiked a few years ago during college. He’s only returning the favour. Not to those kind people who helped him, but to himself. By helping. He’s keeping the tradition alive :-).
It’s not funny but I laughed the other day at something I not that amusing. Laughed because two people lost their chance and I took it. I started writing this blog post on Sunday(23rd Jan ’11) and I was returning home after class on the 24th. I was taking a right, into the smaller road from the main road and I saw an elderly man rush towards my bike. I was perplexed and I rode away. I was scared for a moment. He was definitely in a hurry for I-don’t-know-what !! This post then struck me. I was thinking to myself “if I was even worth writing something like this, if I don’t practice it in real life”. I saw that man do the same thing to 2 others and they rode away, just like I did. I looked at that man and he bent his head. It wasn’t a comfortable feeling and I can’t/don’t/won’t explain here :D. I circled back towards him and he immediately climbed the backseat. It was weird. I asked him what he needed and he said he would be obliged to me if I could drop him till the bus stop. The bus stop was just a 2 minute walk from the place he was standing. He was trembling whilst talking to me and he told me he was operated on his leg after he banged his leg against his dining table. I was already riding when he was telling me all of this. He told me that he’s a diabetic patient and a small cut developed into a serious wound and it had to be surgically treated. We reached the bus stop and he held my hand and thanked me at least a dozen times, to which I couldn’t quite respond in any way. He took out a 10 Rupee note and handed it over to me, which I obviously declined. He said he was going to pick his grandson from school and was waiting at that spot for over 30 minutes and he was willing to pay for an auto-rikshaw till the bus stop. But no auto would take him till there?—Strange :-|.. I came home and I was thinking for a while—He had money but it was of no use. People didn’t help him and neither did the auto-rikshaw guys do their job.
When you help someone, the after effects are always good. Though you may not feel great after you’ve helped someone, the feeling that comes from the act is worth the act. It's a contagious disease and I want more people to fall prey to it!!
Life’s taking me for a ride and I’m its rodeo.
