The Shoes Off My Feet

I am a sucker for shows where real people try to make a difference in the world.  The new show "Secret Millionaire" is one of those shows.  I have watched it every Sunday night since its premiere, and I am totally hooked.  If you don't know, the premise is that a millionaire goes undercover in a neighborhood that is less than privileged, and they volunteer there, looking for people to donate some of their own money to.  On the surface, it's just another reality television show.  But what I love is that people's lives are actually changed because of it.  Tonight's episode really got me, and I just had to write about it.

The millionaire profiled spent a week on Skid Row in LA, and he found a couple people doing good work down there.  One guy was just a guy who runs a store in another part of LA, and he slept in his camper for a week and realized it gets cold out at night.  This make him think about the fact that there were people actually sleeping out in the cold every night, and that he could do something to help.  Every week, he goes down to Skid Row with donated clothes and sleeping bags and baggies full of toiletries and just gives them to people.  He hangs the clothes on a fence, and gives them stuff out of his car.  He's just a guy, doing something good.  I loved it.  Here's the kicker though.  There was an old man with a walker whose shoes had been "soiled" and were too big.  They didn't have a new pair that would fit him.  The store owner asked him what size his feet were, and it happened to be his own shoe size.  He took the shoes off his feet and gave them to the man.  I was instantly weeping.

That simple act of kindness, that seemed so small to that particular man made a huge difference in someone's quality of life.  He probably had several other pairs of shoes at home, so what's one pair off his feet?  I think there is a huge lesson to learn here (or relearn!).  Simple, small acts of kindness and selflessness are usually the most poignant and beautiful.  I look in my closet every morning and I am frustrated by the fact that I don't have the kind of clothes that I want.  All of my clothes are too big, too old, too worn...and yet, they cannot be contained by the closet!  There are things I don't ever even look at in there, and I have the nerve to say I "need" new clothes?  I don't think so.  I am one of the many families in this world who live paycheck to paycheck, and yet I have so many things that my house will not hold them all.  How backwards is that, especially when I see a man on Skid Row who's quality of life was just changed by a used pair of shoes?  Wow.  I need to count my blessings.

There are so many people in this world who have nothing, and so many of us who just don't care, often because we don't know to care.  We see the stories on the news, but we've been so desensitized to things we see on television, that it often just becomes another story in a long line of many.  But the reality is that all of us share this planet, and we are just trying to eke out the best existence we can.  But why do we live within only the confines of these lives we lead?  I am certainly guilty of this.  I have seen absolutely nothing beyond my own continent, and have lived in the same province my whole life.  I'm not saying I'm going to jump on a plane and go somewhere to help someone to ease my comfortable guilt.  No, I have just been reminded that there are things I can do in this small existence I lead to make someone else's life just a little better.  Something as simple as giving a man the shoes off my feet.  Because let's face it, my closet is full of them.

What can you do today to help someone else out?  I am going to start my days this week by thinking about how I can make someone else's day better.  I may not be able to do huge things, and in fact, most of the time I am confined to the four walls of my home, but I can do something.  I can give a man a pair of shoes.