Exclusive Extract:
DO YOU HAVE
KINDNESS BLINDNESS?
from
BUY IT
HERE
Life & Love: Creating The Dream
by Lisa Messenger
As the editor-in-chief of The Collective – a magazine that only shares inspiring, uplifting
stories – entrepreneur Lisa Messenger says it’s easy to overlook opportunities to help each
other. Here’s how she took her blinkers off.
I recently met a friend for juice in the city – she took the train from the other side of town to
see me. On the journey, she noticed a guy in his twenties holding onto the rail near the train
doorway. From his cane, she could tell that he was visually impaired.
She told me she was interested in her own thought process: ‘I think he might need help
alighting. I should help him. Should I help him? Someone else will probably help him. What if
he doesn’t need my help? What if he’s offended? What if I try to help him, but do it wrong?’
All these thoughts flew through her head in a matter of seconds before she mentally kicked
herself. It was a no-brainer! As a human being, seeing another human being in need, she had
to offer her assistance.
And so, when they reached the last station on the line, she asked if he’d like a hand off the
train and guided him along the platform and up the escalators. When I asked what they talked
about, she said that was the most memorable thing – after he thanked her, they walked the
rest of the way in silence, he didn’t feel the need to keep commending her or apologise for
needing a hand. They were just two strangers doing something not that extraordinary really –
helping each other. What she’d seen as a huge deal and overanalysed in her mind was just a
normal human act. Except, we live in such an isolated, self-serving world sometimes that she
almost hadn’t offered to help, because it felt so alien.
Do you walk around with blinkers on, or with your eyes wide open? Would you have noticed a
blind man in the corner of the train, or would you have walked straight past him? I’m not saying
this to be judgmental; I’ve suffered from ‘kindness blindness’ in the past. But helping others is
a habit that we all should practice – because one day you might need help, too.