Woodsy Owl

It feels good to do the right thing... Doesn't it?

Sure...sometimes the act of "doing right" can cause discomfort or strain...embarrassment occasionally. After all... no good deed goes unpunished, right?

But even with a cost... no matter how great... somewhere inside us... we can find that warm fuzzy feeling that comes along with just doing the right thing.

Is it inborn? Or are we taught to through experience during our development ?
If it is inborn..when does it first manifest itself?

I can remember sitting in the back of a near empty bus on my way home from elementary school. And watching as a few other kids picked on another boy on the bus. I was more than shy... I was the kind of kid that hid inside his coat well into spring. I tried so very hard to not be seen...or heard. But I watched and listened always. That day at school all of the children were given a "Woodsy Owl" forest service packet. It was a small bag with literature..games and stickers. Nothing terribly important but to a kid it was something. Well, the other boys kept picking and taunting... One of them grabbed the little boys owl adorned bag and threw it out the bus window. The very instant it cleared the window I sprang out of my seat... screaming all the way down the isle "STOP THE BUS!!!" The bus driver hit the brakes before I made it to his seat. I had to catch myself to keep from falling. I'd startled him... he asked me what I thought I was doing...in a very... excited tone. But it didn't phase me. I shifted my shouts to "OPEN THE DOOR"...which he did. If it happened today I'd be surprised but back then... it was a different world. I ran back down the side of the highway and picked up the Woodsy bag.. I remember having that feeling when I laid my hands on that bag. When it went out the window I was horrified...I felt his pain instantly...I ran down the isle feeling his disappointment... feeling how sad he'd feel about not getting to present his prize to his mother when he got home....it was unbearable. But when I laid my hand on that bag I felt wonderful. I felt like I could do anything. And when I handed it back to him.. he smiled at me... With his cheeks still wet with tears... he smiled at me. He didn't say a word... but I knew that the world was right again... there on that bus the world went wrong for a moment and I helped set it right. It meant something to me.

I suppose... I think we are born with it... and that was the first time I had really paid attention to what was right and wrong because I saw a human cost to it. Of course I had done wrong a thousand times but at that moment I saw that doing wrong hurt other people. That was the moment that it "kicked in" for me.

The reason I am bringing all of this up... is this.

Tonight a person... a person that causes me a great deal of grief... had the chance to do something simple and easy... something that had the potential to harm others if left undone... a chance to do the right thing. And that person opted to not do the right thing. And I wonder if some people never get their Woodsy moment.... if they never have that moment when one realizes that we are all connected....that one can experience another's sorrow.

I think you can teach a person to do the right thing from day one... but if they never get the chance to feel something through someone else then maybe it is all too easy to opt not.

Of course I could be completely wrong but I have to say I am thankful for Woods Owl.