It’s Less Difficult Than You Might Think
The story of the Good Samaritan is one of the most popular stories in all of literature, most everyone has heard it. What is it that makes this story so popular? It’s because it goes right to the heart of who we are made to be. We’re told to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your strength, and all your mind.” Also, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself.”
This is what a Good Samaritan does.
A Good Samaritan puts others needs above their own. They look for ways to help others. This is true in every area of life: work, family, play, it doesn’t matter.
We’ve become separated from and distant to others. This is in part to the excess use of social media, electronic communication, etc. It’s much easier to be less civil to someone digitally than in person.
As human beings we were made to be connected, it’s in our DNA.
Albert Einstein put it like this, “A human being is a part of the whole, called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”
Helping others is how we free ourselves.
In the final two episodes of the “Seinfeld” show the main actors of the show witness an overweight man getting carjacked while they’re waiting on a plane. Instead of helping him, they crack jokes about his size while Kramer films it all on his camcorder, then proceed to walk away. The victim notices this and tells the reporting officer, who arrests them for not helping the man. At their trial the District Attorney’s opening statement is, “the defendants have ignored their Good Samaritan Law and mocked the victim of a mugging.” Comedy tends to follow social reality. Just because comedy does, this doesn’t mean we have to. We can choose our reality.
To be a Good Samaritan doesn’t mean that we have to rescue someone from a burning building, save someone who’s drowning, or stop a carjacking, it means we need to show compassion. Being a Good Samaritan can be as simple as opening a door or helping someone who has fallen.
Being a Good Samaritan is simple, it means caring enough to do something to help others.