Look for the helpers

Yesterday my girls and I went to the yearly event Paris Plage. An afternoon out and about on a makeshift beach in the center of town. Unfortunately, the state of the world is such that the entrance is guarded and soldiers are on patrol, as you can maybe make out in the picture.

The soldiers being there doesn’t really give me a sense of security. To me they are more a reminder of what may happen any time we go out anywhere in the world these days.

Of course, I can let that get to me and live in fear, or I can go with the words of Mr Rogers – “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” To this day, especially in times of “disaster,” I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.

As much as that may sound like I’m keeping myself naive, I’m mostly keeping myself open to meeting good people, the helpers.

After visiting Paris Plage we hopped on the metro back home and met Fran. Fran is most definitely a helper. He sang his heart out, kept cracking jokes at people, reaching out to touch hearts.

I have a lot of respect for people like Fran and I wanted him to know. Now really, I’m not someone to just walk up to a stranger and say: “I have so much respect for you”, but I did. What followed was a most awesome discussion…

I felt encouraged to have reached out to Fran. He wasn’t feeling the love that day.

He also empowered me to reach out to people more often. Fran told me that you can’t go wrong when being kind, even though it’s not always easy because people aren’t always accepting of it.

It’s because of people like Fran that I keep trying to break free from my shyness.

So, thanks Fran, you may have just convinced me to do that more often, after all, you can’t go wrong with being a helper! – AnJo