It amazes me how many people contact me for help, give me a long story about their situation in their email (no punctuation, all lowercase), ask for help, and fail to say where the heck they ARE.
What is up with that? I can't find resources for people if I don't know where they are located.
Believe it or not, if a person contacts me with A) their first and last name, B) their general location, C) the nature of their problem, D)they ask for SUGGESTIONS rather than insisting "someone do something" or "no one cares"...I can be 100% certain they are a person I would want to work with. Whether I am able to or not is something else again. But I know that person is going to follow the project to the end, and help get it solved, and put in some hard work themselves, JUST based on the criteria above. I would even put down $100 in a bet that I would be happy to make that person a solid friend for the rest of my life.
Just based on the fact that they were intelligent enough to share the ABC's of polite introduction.
Before I left for NJ, someone contacted me with the necessary criteria (above). I sent an email that I was leaving town but I would leave two bags of cat food in a cat shelter in front of my barn. I knew that if the food was still there when I got home, that they probably were a person that wasn't going to help solve the problem. They wanted someone to wave a magic wand. If they did pick up the food, they were someone who cared and would really make a difference.
The food was gone when I came home.
That's all it takes to determine a extraordinary person from a person who just doesn't give a damn. If they will take twenty minutes to go out of their way to pick up food for some stray cats...they are extraordinary.
"Average" people will, quite honestly, expect to have it delivered, and probably even dished out nightly. Because it isn't their responsibility.
Well, damn, you know? If we all felt it "wasn't our responsibility" what has happened to the concept of being a neighbor? Of course it's "not our responsibility." If my neighbor's house is burning down, it's not my "responsibility" to go bang on the door to wake her up. But what kind of person are you if you don't?
Isn't that sad, that you can't even expect the average person to be able to provide their first and last name when they contact a stranger for help? That only truly extraordinary people now provide information that used to be the basis for polite conversation between strangers?
(I'm not talking about chat between bloggers here...I'm talking about people who want a physical response or serious websearch help).
Scary. But at any rate, I make a lot of good friends, because I know that any person who is smart enough to write a coherent appeal for help, or pick up a bag of cat food, is probably a really great person to get to know.
1 comment:
Your comments on people are right on. Rescuers are expected to be miracle workers who have endless resources, time and energy. You know a person is a gem when they want your help, not for you to take the problem from them. Love your blog.
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