51–60 of 353 posts
I live in Minnesota and do not own a snowblower. Probably my mistake, but I always joke that I get most of my exercise in the winter. Snow is really heavy for those without context. A couple years ago we had a particularly bad snowfall. The plow has a nasty hate filled habit of dumping all its snow in my driveway. I had a drift at the end of my driveway about 4 feet high and 6 feet deep. Literally up to my chest. I h…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Was he an older guy with a curl in his upper lip?
he was definitely alive
I was blown away and so grateful.
I have paid it forward many times over.
Someone held a door open for me so I had to pick up the pace. I'm ugly so strangers aren't nice to me.
On the other hand, if you asked a bunch of great-looking people what strangers had done for them, you'd get a bunch of stories about people who were very kind (but perhaps not entirely altruistic in their intent).
Just now, I'm travelling through India, and today was particularily rough. (I'm trying to go from Delhi Airport to Agra). Multiple Ubers turned out bad (scams, no-show, or fucking with pickup point). I spent several hours in this limbo getting nowhere. I end up taking a train without ticket on advice of multiple people around me, since the counter refused to sell me one. Turns out, wrong train, going slightly the wro…
I'm wondering if altruism is in decline, in this selfish age of social media. I sometimes even get the feeling that altruism is seen as a weakness these days.
There's also two or three generations of people now who are absolutely terrified of talking to others, so you have to exhibit so level of distress for them to act.
Generally though, I feel like people want to help strangers, and social media makes that easier to do. We have a local organisation that helps those less fortunate, and last year they wrote on Facebook a few days before Christmas that they had five familie (I think if was five), who hadn't been able to get help elsewhere and if people had food, or money they could spare. Took them just a few hours to ensure a nice Christmas for those families. Without social media, we wouldn't have known, and it basically only Facebook that can reach so many generous people in such a short time.
5th grade, my best friend at the time was in a basketball team, just a small town league for kids. I never really played basketball, so I was planning to watch the game then we'd hang out. It was the first game of the season and my friend was getting his uniform from a table when a dad running things asked me what team I was playing on and I said no, I'm just here to hang out with my friend. He shook his head and sai…
I can't really think of anything unfortunately, except courtesy stuff like holding a door. People don't really interact with strangers where I live.
It was snowing. I scraped the windshield of my car. When I was done, I turned the key - and the battery was dead. I shrugged, gathered my belongings and was about to go back into my apartment building. But a woman who has just arrived in her car came up to me. And she asked, “Is your car not starting? You can use mine if you like.” I had needed seen here before. I took it. I returned it with a full tank in the evenin…
I live in Minnesota and do not own a snowblower. Probably my mistake, but I always joke that I get most of my exercise in the winter. Snow is really heavy for those without context. A couple years ago we had a particularly bad snowfall. The plow has a nasty hate filled habit of dumping all its snow in my driveway. I had a drift at the end of my driveway about 4 feet high and 6 feet deep. Literally up to my chest. I h…