Nice Stories Make Me Feel Good!
A friend of mine told me this story: Her husband had gone out on an errand to pay for their car that had been involved in a crash and was in the repair shop. He had $700 in his wallet, enough to pay the bill. On the way to the repair shop, he stopped off at the post office to mail some letters. Focused on his business there, he left the post office forgetting his wallet, only remembering it while on the bus to the repair shop. By the time he returned to the post office his wallet was gone. Terrified, he returned home to tell his wife the bad news. Naturally she was very upset and even more so because it was almost all the money they had at that time. What were they going to do? Not a lot, she thought, but forget about it and move on. Somebody probably had their money and they would never see it again, they assumed. However, late that same night the bell rang at their door. They wondered who could be calling so late. It was a man, who happened to be the CEO of a large cosmetic company. He said he had found a wallet at the post office and he stopped by to tell them the good news. However, he didn’t have the wallet with him. He was busy and was leaving on a business trip to New York early the next day and left the wallet with his secretary and asked her to deliver it to my friends the next day. But as he was driving home he imagined how upset the person must be who lost the wallet. He did not want him to suffer, even a day longer. So he called his secretary, got the address from the driver’s license and made a detour to my friend’s home.
Even though they didn’t have the money in their hands that night, my friends went to bed overjoyed, their minds put at ease. Up to that point what had been a night of tears and regret had been changed into a night of peace and relief thanks to the thoughtfulness of a stranger.
***
A friend of mine who is always ready with a smile and friendly demeanor was taking an international flight. When boarding the plane, the stewardess, who was greeting the passengers, commented and thanked him for his great smile. As a reward she gave him an upgrade to business class!
IN THE NEWS
In Salt Lake City, Utah recently a family moved into their first home that was purchased from an older woman whose family had lived in it for over 40 years, but whose husband had died and the kids were grown up. While roaming around the home, the father took a look in the attic. There he found a box that was full of cash. He and his family counted it together. It amounted to over $40,000. He thought about all the things he could do with it, repair the home, repair his car….But he returned the money to the previous owner, whose husband had hid it there unbeknown to her. The new owner said, “the money wasn’t ours to keep and I don’t believe you get a chance very often to do something radically honest, to do something ridiculously awesome for someone else and that is a lesson I hope to teach to my children.”
This story moved me, but it was the readers’ responses that were just as inspiring. The story provoked an avalanche of responses, of the following nature:
Readers Responses
“You are a really great guy. Good things will come to you.”
“We need to hear more stories like this; it made my rainy day brighter.”
“I once lost…my wallet with over $3000 of my very first semester college tuition in Austin. I looked around for 6 hours of nightmare. At the end of the day, a guy with a hole in his running shoe returned the wallet to me. He wouldn’t even take any money I offered him. There are still a lot of good out there.”
Nice stories make people feel good.
Frank Costelloe, U.S.A.
Source: The Buddhist Village Times #06 | 2011, Nice Stories Make Me Feel Good!
Like our FB page: www.facebook.com/InternationalBuddhistAcademy/ Visit our website: www.purelandschool.com
Source image: Free Wix Images
