Where Have All the Nice People Gone?

I wish more people had heart. Not A heart; we all have one of those. I mean the times where people do something nice to help out a fellow human being, or bend the rules under special circumstances if it seems right. There have been too many instances in my life where a person of authority would not budge on the rules, not one bit, when they could have easily made my day by making a simple, reasonable exception. For example, the lady who wouldn't let me watch the Huey Lewis concert from the ambulance area, even though I had a ticket and couldn't get in because I wasn't 21. She could have easily let me stand there - a harmless act, and I would have written on how the situation was mended rather than made worse. She just didn't have common sense and compassion and heart, which seems to be a sad pattern amongst people. That being said, I like to live my life by the golden rule... seems cheesy, but it makes sense. I hold a job of reasonable authority now by 'supervising' and have to make some important decisions. But the most satisfaction I get out of life, which could be applied to most people if they tried, is to live by this golden rule. To do something and think, "Wow, that's how I wish somebody would treat me in that situation." It's comforting, and it's precisely the attitude I brought to refereeing (being one of the 'good' refs) and now to my supervisor job.

Not to toot my own horn, but something happened last night where I acted how I would hope to be treated. I was supervising, and 'broke' the rules to help out some guys. They simply wanted to play a pick-up game of soccer after the IM games were over, but needed me to keep the goals unlocked and the lights on. Basically, they needed me to stay past my scheduled time of work while they played for a bit. They hadn't been able to get their crew together to play for some time, and nighttime was the only time they could all play. They had tried renting a field, but the time slots were all full, and not many fields in Davis have lights. They needed me. I could have easily said "No" and made up excuses like "it's not part of my job", "I'm not scheduled to work anymore", or "I'm sorry, I just can't do it". I almost did that. I almost said those things. But then I thought of what it would be like if I was in this guy's shoes. It made no sense for me to reject him, when I could easily help him out. I would've liked someone to show me some heart in a similar situation, so that's exactly what I did. I stayed for about 45 minutes past my schedule, unpaid, just so they could play some pick-up soccer. It made their night; they told me they had a great time and were really thankful. It made me feel good that they had such a good time, and all I had to do was go a little outside the lines. It wasn't harmful, it was humane, and I wish it would become more common in our society.