Stranded and Selflessness

Instead of giving up, like ordinary people do, a master uses his ordinariness to correct his errors, which is essential in the process towards attaining mastery. You must be able to correct yourself withour condeming or invalidating yourself, accept the results and improve upon them.

So I know I usually talk about the part of Mastery that I put up every time, but today i wann blog about something different. 

Have you ever thought about the kindness of strangers? like been put in a really crappy situation and then someone, of whom you have no connection with, reaches out to help out? That they stick themselves in the situation that they do not know how you will react or if you will reciprocate thier kindness? Cause let me tell you a story.

So this summer, I have (not to brag, but...) been up to Jasper 4 times. Each for a visit and a hike with one of my oldest and dearest friends. She lives closer to Jasper so we just hang out there and head out in the morning to hike. This time, it was me and her going to the Sundance Hoodoos. Which were first off beautiful, and second off the hike was a lot easier than Whistler. (Still a lot of up hill, but like, nice slow uphill) 

We were on our way back to my friends car when we were stopped by a couple on the trail who informed us that the transmission on her car had been leaking. We booked it back to the parking lot and sure enough, it looked like someone had been murdered under her car. Bright red puddled under the car and was slowly creeping out underneath on of the wheels. And uh, did I mention that it was a one bar or none kinda place? 

So here we are, stuck 95km from any civilation both ways, no cell service and did I mention that it was my friends birthday? yay... happy birthday...... 

All hope was lost! Our valient steed had taken a fatal blow and the outcome looked bleak! When who should appear?!? The couple that we had seen on the trail! They explained that they were heading to Hinton and would be willing to give us a ride. (They also had the most adorable pug, not an important fact, but gosh darnit! It was cute).

We all piled into their truck, saying goodbye to the car and were on our way. They were so very kind. They chatted wth us the whole way and were apparently visiting from Stony Plain! (Its a small world...) Half way to Hinton it struck me why helping us seemed odd to me at this time. Here were these people, not realizing where we from, helping out what seemed to be random people with  a stroke of bad luck. Not a glance of suspision or invasive questions, just a act of kindness. 

And I think that is something that this quaratine can take away. Yeah sure, you get the people who ramp up the suspision to 100% or get the people who don't give a crap, but that wasn't this couple. They understood the worry of corona and stated that they would have helped us whether there was a global pandemic or not. There are people who help, in any sitaution and heck, if that isn't total selflessness than I don't know what is.

The only thing I regret is not learning thier names. Nobody vollenteered their name and noone asked. Call me cheesy, but I think there is something poetic and steadying about that. We were strangers when they helped us, and although we chatted for quite a while, we still parted as strangers. They will always be the "helpful strangers" in my mind, with only that label to define them. 

So what I guess what I am trying to get across is that people are amazing and kind. We only need to remember it.