Jaburg Wilk


Helping Others

Helping others enriches our lives

Most people know and understand that helping others makes you feel good. This can be volunteering for a non-profit or giving directions to someone who is lost. Sometimes your help makes a bigger difference to the person you are helping than you initially think it does.

I recently had the opportunity to help someone who needed a ride. No, I didn’t pick up a hitchhiker. I was camping with a few of my children and, right before we were leaving to drive to an airport an hour and a half away, a nearby camper asked where we were heading. When the answer was the airport in the city their friend needed to get to, she asked if we had room to give their friend a ride to the airport because his ride had fallen through.

He seemed like a nice enough guy and we had chatted with his friends over the long weekend. The long story short is that I said yes. The result was that we were helping someone who really needed to get to the airport.

He was heading home.  We learned he is a musician and had a show that night in a different city.  He needed to get home to work and earn money. It turns out he has four children, like me, his wife has a “normal” 9-5 job, and he travels around country to earn a living playing music. That’s a hard gig.

So, in exchange for helping him out, my kids and I met an interesting person. It also turned out he had good life insights. He discussed such things as setting goals and writing them down. He has his children that, which I think is a great idea that I hope to institute with my children.

This gentleman was so appreciative for the ride. For me, it made me feel good to help someone who was in a tough spot and had income on the line.

The next time you have an opportunity to help someone in need, think about how it makes you feel and how it helps build the type of world and community you should want to live in. And in a world where karma matters, I hopefully banked a point or two.

