Story time tonight Kiddies :-)
This is a story that I heard years ago, by a lovely woman named Kathy Samhuri. I don't normally mention names, but I have to give credit to the source, and I don't think that she would mind. I have to say also that I heard this story once when I was just a young lad of 20 or so... So I may indeed not tell it exactly how it was told, but I believe the spirit of the story is in tact.
Once upon a time, in a land far far away, there lived a very happy group of people.. These people always smiled. They were always nice to each other, and their favourite thing to do was when ever they would see another, they always gave each other a warm fuzzy. As you can imagine, warm fuzzies were warm, and happy and wonderful... The only thing better than giving a warm fuzzy was to receive one. That is how they lived for years. Then one day, someone new moved to town. The first person who greeted them handed them a warm fuzzy. The persons reaction was one of amazement. When asked why he had given him the fuzzy, the cheerful citizen proudly exclaimed that they always gave warm fuzzies to whom ever they met. "That's crazy", the stranger said. "If you give away all of your warm fuzzies, you won't have any left for yourself. The very confused town person walked away and told others what he had heard. Before long, no one handed out the fuzzies. They kept them at home, hidden so that no one could take them. They became a very sad people.
One day they had had enough. They gathered in the town hall for a meeting, where the Mayor proudly exclaimed that he had solved the problem. He handed every person, bucket loads of cold pricklies, and told the towns people that they could start handing those out instead.
And that is exactly what they did. They loved to give each other stuff, so they were happier than when they had stopped, but they were never truly happy like they were when they gave out warm fuzzies again.
It's funny how years later, that story is still with me, I actually still remember how I felt when I first heard it.
In todays world, we can hand out our own brand of warm fuzzy, whether it is a warm smile, a kind word, a hug, or a small act of kindness.
It cost us nothing, and we feel amazing for having done it. By making someone elses burden lighter, our own gets lighter in the process, and we never know how far it's influence goes.
For example. the other day I was driving down a busy road, and there was a large snapping turtle in my lane. Cars were going over it and around it. It seemed pretty obvious that it was not going to get through that experience unscathed. So I pulled over and helped it off the road. It tried to bite my hand, but of course my Ninja like reflexes saved me :-).. Once out of danger I watched it walk through the ditch and into the field towards the pond. I felt really good about myself for having done such a simple act. So good in fact that later when I made it to work, and was walking down the hallway, I remembered him trying to bite me and started chuckling a bit to myself. A co worker asked me what I was so happy about and I told them what happened, which brought a bit of teasing and some laughter from both of us. A couple of minutes later, the conversation was done and I was leaving. They thanked me, they said that they had been having a horrible day, but now they felt better after the laugh. Who knows who they made feel better later on that day.
Kindness has a life of it's own, once unleashed, it just keeps working though the people that have been touched.
So on this day, my gentle readers, lets all heed the very kind Mrs. Samhuri's story, and hand out those warm fuzzies to the people we have contact with...Our children, parents, significant others, and just as importantly, those random people we see who maybe are not expecting it, but may need it most of all.
"If you smile at someone, chances are, they may smile back" - Unknown
Peace Kiddies
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