Spare a thought for less fortunate

Scans show that part of the brain lights up when we do a kind act. We often experience a sense of euphoria when doing so. Usually, these things don’t cost us anything.

All the world’s religions are united in emphasising the importance and spiritual power of being charitable. The Kabalah (Jewish mysticism) tells us that every time we do a kind act, an extremely beautiful angel is created. If we could (in this world) see how beautiful it is, we would want to spend all of our time doing good things.

Unfortunately, when we experience hardships we may become hardened. Not only does this make us unhappy but also it reduces our interest in helping others and avoiding our divine mission of improving the world. Fortunately, others gain an enhanced empathy as a result of suffering.

In this country there are extremely high levels of poverty with unemployment at about 26%. Many have given up looking for work. Some have resorted to crime to fill their stomachs.

Others, who are unwilling to rob and steal, have resorted to washing windows at traffic lights. Before condemning these poor souls, remember they are not doing this for fun. They know what they are doing is unpopular but are still attempting to offer a service. It cannot be easy to stand all day, in all weather conditions, dodging vehicles in an attempt to eke out a living.

These “vision clearance engineers” are generally willing to clean windows even without pay. Unfortunately, some of them have become rude, but most are pleasant. Even though they are wrong to invade our space, do we have the grace not to sweat the small stuff and not get worked up by this?

Let us rather rise to the challenge and help out sometimes.

Martin Zagnoev

Sunningdale Ridge, Joburg