Sometimes I just do not get people’s effort.
Some people make an effort to help out the elderly, smile, say hello, or donate to charities – all of these take little effort but go along way. Then – there are the people who seem to go out of their way not to look you in the eye, not acknowledge you, and are generally miserable. Both types of people make some sort of effort – but in opposite ways.
While I may not be an optimist all the time – I will say hello to anyone and when given the chance – will help my friends/colleagues, and others when and if they need anything.
This brings me to mention my neighbor…which is driving me crazy. In Chicago we get a decent amount of snow and after growing up with a snowblower as means to clear the snow from the driveway – as soon as we bought our house – I went out and got a snowblower. When I was younger I used to always clear not only my parents’ driveway but also the neighbor’s sidewalks and sometimes driveways as well. It was a courteous thing to do – especially when they only had shovels. So back to my neighbor…in between our houses is about 15 feet of property…12 feet of that is his and three feet (one sidewalk block) is ours. Every time it has snowed in the last 3 years I have cleared our driveway and the sidewalk in front of my house to the neighbor’s driveways on both sides.
The neighbors on both sides have shovels and the one neighbor I am annoyed with is older so I make sure he does not have to shovel too much. He also has a fire hydrant in front of his house so I make sure that is always clear of snow. The time it takes me to do this is very small compared to what it would take with a shovel.
Yeah that is right Amy…I used your shoe. I would have used one of mine, but mine were all away in the closet and not sitting out ;)). To me – it took him more effort to stop, take a look at the property line, and then make the decision to stop there than it would have if he would have just did one more shovel scoop. I was/am completely appalled that someone that I have always been nice to and helped out over the last 3 years would make the effort to stop literally 2-3 feet short of clearing a little snow from our sidewalk. Wow. I just do not get people at all.
Serenity now!
