Every human has feelings and that's the difference between us and a tree or let's say a rock. I don't think there's anyone who would volunteer to offer help to someone else without having a motive for his actions. It may be because of love or future favor, and it may as well be for the sake of making another happy. Humans always have reasons for helping each other. While watching a movie, I heard one of the actors say, “A greater percentage of the world’s major problems is due to lack of human selflessness. If everyone is ready and happy to help each other, then the world would be a better place”. I had many thoughts on this saying and later found out it's a sensible fact he made.
I have had many occasions where I was helped by others, but guess what? I never failed to appreciate them because I understand that any form of relief someone else can cause you is a big help. There is this saying, “Never go to a party without eating at home”. I was always thinking about what exactly is the reason I hear some people make this statement but everything I needed to know dawned on me the day I attended a birthday party of my friend’s friend without eating at home first.
That day was a bad one for me, my parents went on a short trip and I was alone. I got tired of warming that one food that Mom prepared for me for the few days so I decided to make my day with some cornflakes and milk, that was all I ate before leaving for the birthday party at noon. I was hoping to eat to my satisfaction at the party. I ate though, but very late in the evening.
When the birthday party commenced, I was hoping there could be light refreshments before the main refreshments but that wasn't so. When the order of events was distributed in a short flier, I found out that refreshments were the last on the list. I felt like going back home to face my leftovers but that would make my friend sad. So I waited while yawning continuously. On the list too was a “stand, stretch and sit back” exercise which was meant to keep everyone active. While the exercise was going on, I didn't join the others because I had no “joules”. But there was this young girl who sat next to me and I guess she was crushing already, her name was Mary. She picked up a conversation with me:
Mary: Hi guy!!
Me: Yo!!
Mary: Won't you love to get up and join us in exercise
Me: No, I'm good
Mary: You look tired or let's say hungry
Me: I'll go for the “or” (with a waning smile)
Then Mary smiled and asked me if I didn't eat before leaving home then advised, “Never go to a party without eating at home first”. Finally, when it was refreshments time, Mary found her way to the dining room (where the food was dished out) and brought a mountain of rice and stew to me. I still wonder how she knew that was my favorite.
From what I observed that day, I was the first attendant at the party to eat. That was a great help from Mary to me. Without Mary, I would have still had food, but she attended to my urgent needs at the right time.
I didn't know how to appreciate Mary than just saying “thank you” but I hoped that someday, I would be of help to Mary or someone else.
A few weeks after this incident, I resumed school after the end of the short break we had. On Monday afternoon, on our school timetable, we were meant to have Physics Practical which would require us to bring our manuals, pencils and erasers to the laboratory for plotting graphs. The graph sheets that we often used were already printed in our workbooks but this fateful Monday, we needed a larger graph sheet due to a larger scale of our test questions. When I got to the store, I picked a graph sheet and after I made payments, the seller said he had no change. While I was still waiting for the man to find a change, I saw Mary coming down to the store to buy a graph sheet as well. We exchanged greetings when she arrived. Mary had no paper cash but the seller didn't accept electronic payments. I had to pay for her with my change in custody of the seller. That was a help from me to her, maybe a repayment for her help at that birthday party.
I felt like it was destiny that brought us both to each other. Since that day, “help” has been the bond between the two of us and we are still friends even now, always seeking ways to help each other.
Helping others goes a long way to influencing our lives and impacting others' lives. It's a good thing to always seek ways to help others and relieve one another of some stress. Never forget, that help is reciprocal.
Thanks for reading. This is my entry for the #septemberinleo prompt for the day, day #05.
The first image is generated using meta AI, but the rest are all MINE.