As I am sitting here practicing social distancing, which actually isn’t a whole lot different than my normal day to day life, I have been reading the news. While there is a whole lot of craziness and bad behavior happening, there is a whole lot of good happening. I am reading story after story about the goodness of humanity.
Of course there are the stories of people hoarding supplies and actually causing shortages where there weren’t any to begin with. They reasonably could have just ordered things online when needed if they had to quarantine. Then there was the men who bought up all of the hand sanitizer in the state of Tennessee and tried to sell it for exorbitant prices online. In the end they donated it all to those in need. I also wondered if people are quarantined at home why can’t they just wash their hands in the sink with soap?
I was just reading about my local community in the Oxford Hills area of Maine. A number of locally owned restaurants have pledged to give away food to those that are in need. The local school districts are lending buses and drivers to deliver all of the food. I have read about the local grocery store giving the first hour of every day to senior citizens to allow them to shop worry free. A man has started an organization to collect all of the food from cancelled events and distribute it to those in need. A woman in North Carolina started offering to deliver groceries to the elderly. I saw a Facebook post that someone had made a door knob hanger that said they would be happy to buy groceries and other things for anyone in the neighborhood and leave it at their door. They are still maintaining social distancing but helping out also. In Italy they have developed simple ways to keep people at safe distances by putting strips of tape on floors of stores. Another really cool idea I saw was a man who visited his dad at a nursing home by sitting outside his window and talking to him on the phone. These are all very simple ways we can all help each other through tough times while not making the situation worse.
I know this isn’t very long but I wanted to add some good to the internet and point out that if you look for the good in people you can find it. If you look for the bad you will find that too. I am choosing to look for the good and help out where I can. Unfortunately carrying bags of groceries might be tough but I am definitely going to try to come up with something to do to make this better for someone else. I hope we all can try at least. What if we treated each other this way all the time?
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