Although there are so many terrible things that happen in the world, what I see is that over and over again, people come through to help each other in miraculous and unselfish ways. Although there are certainly some people who behave in awful ways, I think this is only a small percentage of the population. People start out as good, decent beings, but so many things happen to them as they are growing up that naturally some of those negative events would have to have an impact on their behavior. It seems like especially recently, there have been so many natural disasters and other terrible events, but what I witness is people heading towards the emergency or catastrophe, not even thinking of themselves, and doing whatever they can to help others.

Recently, in the United States there have been a lot of weather related stories such as terrible flooding, wildfires, and tornadoes. As soon as these stories are publicized, large groups of people travel from all over the country in order to help. Out West, for days and weeks acres and acres of land have been burning and destroying the homes and the lives of people who live in nearby areas. Firefighters from all over the country have headed into the danger zones in order to help out there firefighting brothers and sisters, even though they are risking their own lives, in order to help. There are so many instances of this kind of selflessness and bravery. In the news last week, there was a story about a man whose apartment building was on fire, and he was trying to get out of the building by going out onto a fire escape, but he was unable to get down from the fire escape and so was at risk of being burned to death.

Another man at an adjacent building went on to his own fire escape, and was able to somehow reach over to pull the man up onto his own platform, thus saving his life while taking a chance of either catching on fire or falling over onto the street because he had to reach so far and pull-up the whole weight of the other man. That type of unselfishness seems to be the norm when people are put in the position of helping others even if it means risking their own safety.

There are also so many stories about people, both children and adults, becoming active in raising money or gifts for people in need. One little girl, Rachel, heard that there were people in Africa that do not have clean drinking water, and she started a charity to raise money to help guarantee that they would have that. She requested that instead of giving her presents for her ninth birthday that instead people give her donations for the clean water fund. Tragically, she was killed in a car accident soon after she began trying to raise money. She had hoped to raise $300, but because the story came to the attention of the media, people were so touched by her efforts that the fund reached over $1 million several months later. This was a sad story, but it also showed how much love a little girl felt for complete strangers, and then how many people felt love for her as well as so much sadness because of her premature death.

Feeding the hungry is another activity that demonstrates how caring people can be. So many restaurants donate food that is left over to shelters and soup kitchens in order to avoid wasting that food by throwing it out. Walking down the streets in major cities, people show their kindness to people who are down on their luck by giving them money or buying them meals, and want nothing in return other than the satisfaction of helping someone who could very easily be someone that they know and love. People donate all sorts of services as well, like the group Doctors without Borders, who go to underdeveloped countries to provide medical services including plastic surgery to people, especially children, in need. Another organization that demonstrates the very caring nature of people is Habitat for Humanity, who appear everywhere following natural disasters as well as areas where there is extreme poverty, to help people get on their feet by building them a home of their own, no strings attached, simply to do good for their fellow men and women.