Good Samaritans
Just this week, a member of this newsroom misplaced his wallet, thinking he had left it in his car or at home.
While typing away at his desk, he received a call from a police station.
The officer on the other end of the line asked his name, and told him that someone had found his wallet and took it to the station.
It turned out that the wallet had been lost, not misplaced.
It must have fallen out of his pocket as he had been in the area where it was found around an hour earlier. He went to the station and picked it up, with everything still inside, but the Good Samaritan had already left and so couldn’t be thanked in person. But the person whose wallet was found is grateful.
This situation could just as easily have resulted in the wallet being taken by someone else, or just left there. But it wasn’t. It was a simple good deed by whoever this person was, who took time out of their day to take a wallet found on the ground to the station, in order for it to be returned to its owner.
Doing good is something that we should all strive to do.
And so this brings us to the topic of this editorial, those who help others and do good deeds.
There are those among us who make it their lifelong mission to help others. Here, one could mention organisations helping the homeless or the poor, or helping those suffering from addiction.
Others dedicate their time to collecting charity for good causes, or going abroad to help build schools, for instance. Some take food and clothing to war zones to help refugees.
Others fight to protect the environment for future generations, or to rescue people drowning at sea. These people should all be thanked for their work.
But it isn’t just about doing the big things. We can all do small things to make the world around us a better place.
There are people who take the time out of their day to take an abandoned animal they came across to a shelter, or take it home and post photos of it online to try and find its owner, people who do the shopping for an elderly neighbour.
People who take part in an environmental clean-up of a beach or green area in their free time, people who, instead of throwing their unwanted clothes away, give them to people in need or leave them in the several containers that are strategically placed in some parts of the island, from which they are picked up by charities and passed on to people in need.
And yes, a simple gesture like returning a missing wallet or purse is something that could make someone’s day.
There are things we can all do to make the lives of those around us better, whether we know them or not. And we should all strive to be better.