Life Changing Moment: Help someone today!

Photo credit: elearningindustry.com

Ever been haunted? Maybe not. We usually hear about ghosts from our past...Ever heard of one from the future? Every human usually encounters life-changing moments, most times, they leave a life-long impact. We all have our inner-man as called by some, conscience as called by others constantly walking us through every detail, second-guessing our actions in a bid to get us to make the right decisions.
So, it's a sunny Saturday afternoon and I'm home. The weekend was here and as much as I relaxed, I was going through my week in my head. After weighing the number of good to bad key decisions, it seemed like I had a pretty good one. Although, there was one that kept disturbing me. The whole scenario kept replaying in my head. I already knew I had made a somewhat selfish decision but at the time I was still looking for answers as to how best I would have approached the situation. I craved an opportunity to fix what I felt was broken in me, give myself some closure...some inner peace.
I got up from my bed and looked myself in the mirror. For a moment, I wish I could say a "mirror, mirror on the wall.." like the Queen from Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs and get a reply to a question that assessed my soul. This wasn't a magic mirror, I had to do the soul-gazing myself. In the midst of all the mental turmoil, I noticed that my hair needed fixing. I wasn't busy and I could use some company, decided I'll visit the barber's shop immediately. I put on some clothes and headed there. The walk down the road seemed a lot longer than usual. As I approached the scenery from which a past event haunted me, I tried to walk faster.
Turns out the previous day, I got a not-so-encouraging call from a friend, Frank, in school about my grade in a course. The result got released earlier in the day, and Frank saw it thoughtful to inform me. The call came just as I was headed to school, my countenance fell and everything around just seemed to annoy me. On my way to school, I met a kid. He looked homeless, hungry and not well-taken care of. He approached me and asked for some money. I remember going out with just enough for me and no more. Still furious about the result, I yelled at him to get lost but the kid wouldn't. I sensed his desperation but I didn't care. I felt our problems were ours to deal with and at the moment he was burdening me with his. He held on to my trousers pleading but I shook him off. I boarded a taxi. As the taxi drove off, I looked back and saw he was still rooted to the spot. Getting to school, I alighted, paid my fare and just then, I noticed that I had some money in the breast pocket of the denim I wore. I felt bad. If I had just tried to maintain a lighter mood, I sure would have seen the money and helped the kid out. My result had been completed, but the kid's situation was ongoing. I regretted not lending a helping hand. I rarely gave out money to kids on the street but this situation felt so different.
Today was a different day though, and I tried to put that incident behind me. Just as I walked past where I met the other kid yesterday, another walked up to me. It seemed like an angel had given me an opportunity to atone for my wrong. I never felt so lucky. I took a quick peek at my wallet and I took some money out. I squatted so as to be on level height with the kid and I told him to get some food and buy himself something nice with the rest of the cash. I further asked his name and soon we were having a conversation. It was a brief one though and when it was all over I felt glad within me. I attempted to continue to the salon, then I saw my 10th-grade teacher and we exchanged pleasantries. The rest of my walk was uneventful.
Just as I reached the salon, a vehicle ran into the salon. It seemed the shop had just opened for business and the barber had gone out to grab a meal close by. The car ran into the waiting portion of the salon. The wall there crumbled and the seats had disappeared under the rubble. I was stuck in a moment of great confusion, perplexed at what I was beholding. I have only seen a handful of accidents in real-time in my life. I saw lots of movement around me, people coming around to see how they could rescue the situation. The barber had already raced down to see if there were any clients in at the time of the accident. The store was pretty small, so everything was atop each other and covered in concrete. The car was towed out of the building as everyone around tried to clean up the scene. The resounding comments were, "Thank God there was no one in"... "Thank heavens no one was killed or hurt".
When everything had died down, the barber managed to give me a cut in what seemed an abandoned building. The whole time, I was short of words. I virtually lost my vocabulary. As for the hair cut, I barely took notice of what kind of cut the barber was giving me. "Yes" was my reply to every question he asked regarding the styling of my hair. The whole time, I thought, "What if I had shrugged off the responsibility of helping the kid"...then certainly, I would have gotten to the salon earlier...and I would have been seated when the vehicle ran into the building.
On my way home that day, I made a decision to lend a helping hand or at least a listening ear to others' issues. It takes nothing really and I hope everyone else reading this does same. Help a friend, help a stranger, it is one and the same!