This past week I’ve been feeling a bit down, feeling like the I’m not really helping anyone. Every time someone asks me what I want to do when I grow up I always say “save the world.” When someone asks me how may day is going my typical response is “oh you know, just saving the world with fruits and vegetables.” But, truthfully, I haven’t felt like that at all lately. Luckily for me I have a couple really great friends here that reminded me that though I may not be changing someone’s life from a nutritional standpoint I do have the ability to change someone’s day. I have the ability to make them laugh and make them have one good moment during their hospital stay.
We all have that opportunity and I don’t think any of us take advantage of it nearly enough. I think people are mistreated far too often. The difficulty is no one truly knows what is going on with another person. Maybe you’re in customer service and you have a really difficult customer who has come in in a bad mood and seems to be taking it out on you. But you don’t know that their mother is in the hospital dying. Or maybe you’re dealing with a student who fell asleep in your class but what you don’t know is that he didn’t eat supper last night because his parents don’t have any money. Or maybe you work in patient care and have someone who is constantly difficult but you don’t know what kind of upbringing that person had to make them this way. We never will 100% understand what someone else is going through and that is reason enough to be compassionate to everyone, no matter what profession you work in.
One of the things I’ve learned over the last few years is that everyone has a really great story and everyone has the ability to teach you something. That something may be some piece of knowledge that they have to share with you or it may be something about yourself, what you want, and who you want to be in this world. See the value in talking with other people, they all have the ability to contribute to your life. This person may not be someone you want to be friends with or someone who is even particularly pleasant to talk to but they still have something they can teach you. Let each person you meet be an opportunity to become a more well rounded person.
And please, don’t for a second think you are better or above any other person in this world no matter what differences there may be in attitude, intellect or income. And if you ever think you are take a look at this video and shut the hell up.
PS- eat some goddamn carrots, good nutrition is associated with a decrease in mood disorders 😉
Pearl out.