Philadelphia often feels like the farthest place one can be from camp. With the lack of trees, the tall buildings, and the millions of people that swallow one up; it does not radiate the feeling of a welcoming tight-knit community that one feels out among the trees at camp. “The outside world,” can be a place where we are not as comfortable expressing ourselves in the way we do at camp for fear of negative judgment. However, for those of us who often lament that we are unable to be our camp-selves outside of camp, hopefully this story provides encouragement to the contrary:
Riding on the 48 into town early in the morning for jury duty, it was a typical morning Philadelphia bus ride. The double-length bus was packed full of silent, angry looking people on their ride to work (anyone who’s ridden SEPTA or public transportation during rush hour knows the look). As we reached a stop, there was a lady who had requested a stop that was trying to get off at the back. Unfortunately, the bus driver did not open the back door after stopping and continued to drive on. The lady attempted to get the driver’s attention by yelling “back door” but he was still unable to hear her on such a loud and densely packed bus. Fortunately, years of riding and driving the tractor at camp reminded me how to get a driver’s attention over a loud engine. Going against conventional wisdom for your average city dweller I was compelled to instinctively then yell “1-2-3.” On 3, without any prompting at all, the entire back half of the bus yelled at the top of their lungs “BACK DOOR!” The driver stopped and the lady made her exit. As cool as the incident was, what was even cooler was that afterwards, a group of strangers who spent the whole ride in silence began talking to one another after they went through this shared experience together, however small. I even got a few high fives on the way out the door for what wound up in the grand scheme of the planet to be a minor gesture. While a small sample of the population, it stands to reason that if you can get a bus full of the scariest looking North Philadelphians to act like they are on a hayride at camp, then you should always feel comfortable being a kind and helpful person in a room full of strangers. Often, we shy away from doing the little things because of a perceived awkwardness and fear of being judged; however, it has been said that the world is 10% of what we see in front of us and 90% of how we react to it, and this 90% is something we are always in control of. So long as that reaction is to lend a helping hand, it will always outshine whatever the 10% in front of us is. Every choice we make, regardless of how little it may seem, can have a real impact. And after all, we all do what we do to make the world better place, right?