To be a better person

A few weeks ago in Salt Lake City, I was eating at a pizza place with my sister and unwinding after a long week.

When the waiter came over to ask if we wanted anything else, she said just a box. Because we were traveling, I wasn’t quite sure where she was going to keep it, but I went along with it in case she just have some crazy hunger fit later. She can tend to get a bit cranky at times, so I just went with it. She had no intention of ever finishing the pizza. On the walk from the hotel we had passed several homeless people and I was informed we would be giving it to one of them.

Over the years, I have always given change or food when I get a chance, and my 11-year-old son has been doing the same for years. It’s just a chance to help out someone who needs it a lot more than me.

My sister, who lives in Los Angeles said that this is something she does everyday. While it may not always be food for a homeless person, she said that she will do a good deed daily and it makes her feel a little bit better.

When I handed the pizza a homeless couple the man was very appreciative and said he was very hungry. The woman was not quite as happy and I think she may have spit at me and called me some nasty names, but I know she most likely ate it later and if that helped, than it was a silver lining.

The more I thought about this, the more I think it’s a genius way to look at life. Why not do a nice thing everyday.

We live in a world with so much negativity. Try and turn on the national news. You are bombarded with the news of evil doings across the globe. Turn on the Salt Lake news and it’s pretty apparent that it may not be the little oasis a lot of people think it is. Seems a lot like inner-city Detroit there these days.

Even a quick glimpse at the Green River Star last week and a very tragic and sickening story dominated the front page. Unfortunately this is part of working with the media. As much as I would like it, it can’t always be pony’s, unicorns, and leprechaun’s chasing pots of gold.

But even with the negativity that at times engulfs the world, doing something nice once a day is not unrealistic.

The end of summer was really interesting to me because the ice bucket challenge spread like a wildfire and every where you turned someone was posting a video.

I thought this was great that a worthy cause was getting a lot of attention, but I think some people were just trying to see who could come up with the most creative idea and lost what it was truly about. I feel a lot of people really had there heart into it, but some just wanted to do the next popular thing and probably had no idea how it started in the first place.

So while I laud the effort those who really cared made, it just wasn’t my thing.

I certainly can’t afford to donate money daily to a charity or give it to someone outside of Wal-Mart or the other places you will see them in Sweetwater County, but I’m going to do something nice everyday.

So I’m going to get off the computer, be a human being, and do something nice.

And it all starts today.