We see hundreds of people every single day in our lives, whether that’s while we’re walking in the street, shopping at the grocery store, or driving on the highway. And even though we are constantly coming into contact with people, we rarely wonder how they are doing.
You can see someone looking fine and smiling on the street, but you never truly know what they are going through in their own lives. They can be struggling hard and we just simply never know. What’s the saying… Oh yeah, don’t judge a book by its cover.
And that is exactly why it is so important that when we come into contact with other people, we must treat them with the utmost respect and kindness. If you are rude to them, it can be the final straw in their terrible day and you don’t even know it.
Conversely, simply smiling at someone or asking someone how their day is can make the biggest, most positive impact on their life.
Mike Powers is a man who, one day, found himself traveling from Nashville to Mississippi for work. He wasn’t exactly thrilled about it but you know how work goes, his boss said he had to go.
So he was on his way, driving on the highway when suddenly a cop car came along and signaled to him to pull over. He thought that his already bad day was just going to get worse. It’s a natural assumption when anyone suddenly gets pulled over by a police car.
Even though the cop was going to give him a ticket, Powers thought he would ask the police officer how he was doing, with all of the troopers in Mississippi.
Little did he know, the cop who had pulled him over had been going through such a rough time. He was already so overwhelmed, so to have someone — let alone someone he was ticketing — ask him how he is was huge. It was a small gesture but it made a wildly strong impact.
“He said he was doing good and it was tough but he was going to keep doing what he needed to to help people,” Powers later said.
A very pleasant surprise.
After the exchange, the cop gave him his ticket. But here’s where it gets even sweeter: Powers decided to give something back to the officer.
Powers told the cop that he wanted to have his wooden saint bracelet.
“I told him, ‘Hey I want you to have this, and hopefully if you ever need it — God forbid — it’ll come in handy. It’ll keep you safe,'” Powers explained.
This made the officer’s day.
“I was so touched by it, I almost teared up there,” the officer said.
“I gave this man a ticket, worth maybe $200 but still out of his kindness, he wanted to give me something,” he added. “It was so positive, I needed that. We needed that.”
Powers understands that yeah, a ticket isn’t ideal, but it’s not the worst thing in the world when you know other people are going through harder times.
“My day was stressful because I was trying to get somewhere I didn’t think I’d make it to. That was nothing compared to what he deals with on a daily basis. The stress he has to deal with not knowing if he’s gonna make it back home,” Powers explained.
The cop keeps the bracelet in his car at all times as a beautiful reminder that there are still some kind people out in the world.
What a beautiful story.
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