I work at a self storage facility. That may sound boring but it's really not, I run into a huge variety of people and crazy situations. The people I interact with range from the ones who have more money than they know what to do with to people who live in their vans. Several people who store here do live out of their vans, all their worldly possessions are in their storage units and they come here daily to go through them. I've gotten to know these people pretty well and they are lovely, intelligent, good people. They may look a little rough around the edges but they have good hearts. I don't know how most of them came to be living the life they are, maybe that's a story for another day. I've come to believe that they are, for the most part, happier than the people I know who do have money, go figure.
I try to be nice to everyone I meet. I'm not perfect and I'm not always successful. I have shown kindness to the people I mention above in small ways; by taking the time to listen, smiling, treating them like human beings, once I even drove a gentleman to the emergency room to be with his wife. What makes me sad is when I am kind to them, and I tell them their nice or good people or whatever, the look of shock on their faces can be heart breaking. I suspect that they don't hear those kind of things very often.
My point in sharing these stories is this: if you see someone who appears to be down on their luck please just show them some kindness anyway you can, you don't know their story, don't judge them for being dirty or unkempt, just treat them like a person. By being kind I've been rewarded in more ways than I can imagine and it cost me nothing to do it.
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