Friday 05.03.2021 — Good deeds
This morning I heard an interview at Youtube Photography Channel of a young prolific and successful photographer talking about doing good deeds for others. He knows the meaning very well because his success was due to other people’s good deeds for him. He called upon others to do good deeds. The rewards and the joys of doing good things are beyond words.
More than twenty years ago, a friend needed help to get information for this daughter to get student accommodation at Hertfordshire Polytechnic in England. We are eight-time zones away-a a distance of 12,000km by flight. In those days when there was less information and the absence of social media, my only way to get information was via email. I got to know the kind English gentleman via my blogging and managed to get him to obtain the information as requested by my friend. What really made me feel grateful to him was his efforts to drive ten miles from his house to the hostel for lady students to get the information. Nowadays, we can just google the information online. This act of kindness to strangers was very rare indeed!
In May 2012 on my way to Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, I got lost. There was no Waze or Google Map to guide me on my smartphone. On the paper map, I know where the museum is but I don’t know where I was. As I looked up scanning the urban cityscape, I saw a young lady walking in my direction. I greeted her and asked for directions. To my lovely surprise, she insisted on walking me to the museum! On arrival, I asked for her name and she is a Muslim girl Morrocco doing her law degree in Amsterdam. When I asked her about what she had done for me, she replied,” I decided to do a good deed today!”. May Allah reward her handsomely. As I walked to join the queue to buy the ticket, I thanked Allah for His beautiful help.
On my trip to Paris with Wah Hulaimi in 2003, he took me to Shakespeare & Company Bookshop by the River Seine and also near the famous Notre Dame. The late George, the bookshop owner, was there. Knowing that we were foreigners, he offered us a room to stay for the night. It was very kind of him. He was a hippie of the ’60s. Printed on the steps of his bookshop, I read: Be kind to strangers, they may be angels in disguise. We thanked him for his generosity.
About ten years ago, while having my lunch at the McDonald in Gombak, I saw a lady with her daughter taking a table next to me. On the table, I noticed three cups and three packs of food. Before they started eating, the girl went out with a cup of drink and a pack of food and gave it to the blind beggar sitting outside the restaurant. What a great act of kindness to those in need.
Lessons learned: We don’t have to be rich in order to be kind.
