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The other day I went to the market during my lunch break to buy some things I needed. Prior to leaving the store, I stopped by the Starbucks inside and bought some drinks for my coworkers. On my way out, I was carrying the cup holder and the drinks, my car keys, my cell phone, my purse and the two bags of stuff I purchased. In other words, I had my hands full. As I was exiting, one of the bags ripped and my water bottles fell out and started to roll across the ground. As I struggled to try and catch them without dropping what I had in my hands and before they went into the road, two persons that were passing by, approached me; an older male and a younger female (perhaps his daughter). She had an empty plastic bag and asked me if I could use an extra bag. I replied that I could. The older male picked up my water bottles and put them inside my other plastic bag and then she double bagged it with her empty plastic bag. After thanking them a few times, I saw them walk away and realized they had taken the items they had just purchased out of their bag and were carrying it in their hands in order to give me their bag. I was surprised at their generosity. On my drive back to work I kept thinking how nice it had been of them to do that. When I got to work, I mentioned the incident to my coworker and she looked at me and said, “there are still good people out there, you know”. I think she couldn’t understand why I was so surprised at what had just happened. Hmmm…

A few days ago, a friend of mine told me how she had befriended someone (a guy) at the market and all I could think of (without saying it, of course) was: “You don’t even know who this person is!”, “How do you know he’s not some kind of rapist or a killer?”, “How could you give him your number just like that?”, “How can you tell him where you live if this is the first time you meet him?”.

These incidents happened within days of each other and they made me realize that I’ve totally given up on the good people that are still out there in this world. Due to the nature of the work I do, the shows that I watch on a daily basis, because of what I studied, as well as what I read in the news every day, I’ve lost hope in there actually being good people. I trust very few people in my life, and my mind, because I’m an investigator, has been trained to expect the worst and doubt (almost) everything and everyone. I also realized that I expect people who approach me to have an ulterior motive for doing so. I’ve come to the realization that I’ve put some sort of barrier around me which prevents me from really getting to know people as well as opening up to them.

I want to change that, of course, without letting my guard down completely. It’s something that I know I need to change. I need to start seeing the good in people and believe that good people really do exist. One can’t go on in life always (never doubt your instinct though) doubting everyone and their intentions. Where do I begin though?

Remember that New Year’s post in which I stated that I didn’t know what I wanted to accomplish this year? Well, let’s start with this…

becky (2)