Pay It Forward
One time at an event with my Karate class, my sensei gave me one of his expensive uniforms. He said he was giving it to me because the one I was wearing was yellowed, ripped, and ratty-looking, and also because of a principle in his old school in which you pay a favor forward instead of paying it back. After he saw the movie "Pay It Forward," he said it represented what was already practiced in his school.
So that night, I ran out of gas on my way home because I had a broken gas gauge. I got out and pushed my car off to the side. Immediately, this guy in a pickup pulled over to help. He took me to gas station so that I could buy some gas and he took me back to my car. That saved me a lot of jogging. Along the way, he told me that he once helped a family that ran out of gas on the road and he got a $500 ticket from an asshole cop because he was parked on the road facing the wrong direction, and he was about to go to court over it. I was taken aback by his willingness to do the same thing again in such a circumstance (he again parked on the road and a sheriff passed us).
I often see people off the side of the road with their hazard lights on. They have a flat tire. They have engine trouble. They are out of gas. They got in a wreck. I would like to help those people out, and I would like to be prepared to help them out. What can I do to help? I have a cell phone, I carry a spare gallon of gas. It would be a good idea to have a pair of jumper cables, too. What else can I do? What can I do if someone has a flat, for example? Carry a car jack and a wrench? I would like to be more able to pay forward the favors that have been paid to me.
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