Friday, March 30, 2007

State of niceness

Its no surprise that recently the headlines in the papers noted that the state of racial integration among 'youngsters' apparently was low. This had been going on for a while now and of course the dailies have toned the whole thing down yet again.

Which worries me somewhat. Disintegration is a dangerous thing in a multi-cultural community, but what if disintegration draws the line between nice people and the rude, dangerous drivers? Perhaps then we would have to resort to getting more people to be nice, because these are the kind of people that wouldn't incite anger, or road rage, which triggers larger, unwanted events.

I've recently switched my MP3 disc in my car to a CD I simply call, Jazz Greats. Its got Coltrane and Davis and Monk, things like that. It makes you a nice person, I think.

I was at the Autopay kiosk today and this girl had no spare change. So she was talking to this elderly couple and they couldn't understand her I think because she spoke in English (shame on them), so they eventually walked away as I finished paying my ticket. Then she turned my way and asked if I had change for 50.
'I only have 1s and 100s, though.'
'Oh really? I only have...50, and 1.50 in coins...that's so annoying'
'How much do you need?' I said as I looked at her kiosk that read 'RM2.00'
'I need another 2'
I took out RM2 and gave it to her, 'Here you go.'
She paused for a while and said, 'No...I can't take your money.'
'You sure?'
'Um...yeah. I think I'll go break it upstairs'
'Okay then,' I said as I walked off.
I wasn't particularly in a hurry or anything, but I decided to leave it at that. Why?

Because I want people to know that there are nice people around here. Nice people that don't want anything from you, not your time, your money, your phone number, your attention. Things that people always want from other people. Everyone wants something. But what if you changed all that by making selfless decisions. Could that change someone's day? Or life?

I think that was worth 2 Ringgit right there.