Like most KLites, running the rat race doesn’t leave me much time to think about anything else besides myself and those who are important to me. I have wanted to give back to the community for as long as I could remember but when it came to actually doing it, there are a million and one excuses I can conjure for not doing it. Sounds familiar? Sadly, giving back to the community to many of us is nothing more than what we confess we never could find the time to do.
Fortunately, last week my girlfriend and I, we were lucky enough to have both the time and opportunity to actually do our little part in giving back to the community and it was an eye opener to the both of us although what we did was what many may consider insignificant. Yet we were happy that we managed to do our part.
I recently joined a KL chapter of a club (LCI) which focuses on doing social and community work. On a rainy Monday evening, inching through the rush hour traffic which had just started to build up, we made our way to Brickfields accompanied by 2 friends who were visiting KL from the UK we had just met at a Deepavali open house the night before. It was around 5pm and the rain wasn’t showing signs of stopping anytime soon. We arrived at our destination at the Railway Club building behind the YMCA in a part of town I swear I had never set foot upon before.
To describe how I felt then, maybe it was the damp weather, everything looks a pale shade of gray, the neighborhood looked tired and sad and there already was a line forming outside the building. We were there for the LCI’s feed the needy which some of the members try to run everyday at 5-6pm on weekdays. About 20 minutes later, one of the member’s car pulled up at the entrance and popped his trunk. We wasted no time distributing Styrofoam packets of food to those who were waiting in line to receive them. These Styrofoam packs contain rice and a few vegetable dishes cooked by our fellow LCI members.
One member told me that those who receive these packets of food were mostly the blind working in massage parlors nearby, ex-drug addicts, physically challenged individuals, beggers and those who looked really and desperately poor and the both of them (a couple) have been doing this for so long that they have memorized most of the names of those who come and collect their food packets daily.
This experience has taught me a few important lessons in life. The first is to be happy with what I have and never ever complain that I don’t have enough because there are those who are far more disadvantaged than me. The second is the importance of giving back to the society and community because what goes around comes around. Our act of giving back to the community may not reward us with monetary gains but it may reward us with happiness and contentment that we have played our part in making a difference in someone else’s life.
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