gratitude

Things in the Downtown.

      It has been an interesting two months since we moved to the new digs. I have become our primary breadwinner and as I work retail and make the bare minimum things are tight. We have our budget and there is very little wiggle room and no compromise. We stick to it. If our food budget is adhered to and we can save a little we treat ourselves to take-out once a month for a date. If we don't go too many places there is enough money for gas and we can try to visit my family. But however the numbers barely add up on paper there is always extra some how at the end of the month. A few dollars to have a few friends over for dinner, or to put up for when our '96 car dies on us. I promise you that there should not be enough for savings. But at the end of each month there is a little. I believe that all the things that we have are blessings. Not just the little left over each month, but the amount before all the bills come out.
Knowing that all that I am given comes from a loving Heavenly Father brings a peaceful feeling, but also a desire to show my gratitude. The way that I choose to show that gratitude is to give a percentage of what we make and give it back to my Father in Heaven. With that donation others are blessed too.
I can't tell you that I know for any logical reason. There is no proof, other than that our family should never be able to live on 160-180 dollars a month on food and eat as well as we do or that our budget never makes sense at the end of a month. But I can tell you that there is always a bit left, I feel very assured that is because I have shown my gratitude. I know that it doesn't make sense that if I show gratitude for all that I have, I should then be blessed even more. But I have come to rely on it.
Another awesome thing about this principal is that it comes with a promise; if are honest with our giving back we will never feel the burden of poverty. We may very well be in poverty but we will never feel that terrible burden. Mr. Sollywood and I always laugh and high five each other because in school Mr. Sollywood gets a low income family grant from the government. We love our little apartment in the bad part of town. We look around and see the extreme poverty around us as we live in Downtown. It breaks our hearts to see the extreme need here and that there is so little that we can do to help. We give of our time and what we can of our means, but although most people would say that we are one of these for whom we feel sorrow- in our hearts we do not feel that it is so. What a beautiful blessing.

The Bystander Effect and the Avengers

Here's what happened.

I'm doing some homework. Writing about the connection between conformity and the bystander effect. In short, conformity is going along with the rest of the group and the bystander effect is to assume someone else will do something. In short of course. The bystander effect takes cues from the group. When no one else is doing anything about a given situation for some reason people assume someone else must be doing something. Made famous (or perhaps infamous) in 1964 when Kitty Genovese was killed while a good 30 something or more people watched from their apartments. Each assumed someone else was calling 911.
Anyway, I hear a loud crash in the apartment above me followed by some colourful language and screaming. My immediate reaction is something isn't right. But then I justify it by thinking probably someone dropped something and the resulting screams were out of anger or frustration. Understandable. I hear more smashing and screaming. Still I think oh boy, stupid people having a fight. But distinctive thumping and crashing aren't normal for a healthy spat. I use the term healthy VERY lightly since I believe they are never necessary but that's another issue. Oh and I also hear a baby crying now. Also, having primed myself with thinking about the bystander effect and not wanting to fall into such an unfortunately common statistic, I called 911. Well the landlord first. I had never called before. It was exciting. After I hung up I thought okay, back to homework. But it continues to escalate. Words like stop and get away were clear and no longer muffled by the floor seperating us. So I went up there. I took off my glasses in case I had to throw down. Ya know, I'm a pretty big guy. I've had fight training even though it's only been in a dojo and was several years ago now. Now I listened outside the door I assumed it was and yes I could still hear everything and that confirmed it. I banged on the door but it was locked and I hear someone say look what you did now. People heard. And then silence. Well kind of. Baby still crying but nothing else. I found that odd and I can only imagine what the reason was. Did they both want to keep private even though it may or may not have been abusive? Certainly sounded that way but I never saw. Was one constrained from speaking at this point? I don't know. But the police arrived. Very quickly I also. I was inpressed. Just a couple minutes. Then I left. I don't know the whole story. That's the role I played. Did I butt in where I wasn't welcome? I don't know. Was it unnecessary? Can't be certain. But if it was then I'm glad I did.

And the first trailer for the Avengers movie came out this week and I went all geek over it.