People

     I’ve done a bit of traveling in my life.  I think I’ve been in almost 2/3 of the states within the continental United States plus Hawaii.  I’ve also been to five or six countries within the world, having lived in Turkey for almost two years.  And there is something I’ve found to be true about all these visits: If you smile at people and be friendly you get along a lot better than if you act like you’re superior to the locals.

     A friendly smile is not bound by the language of most countries.  If you treat people the way you’d like to be treated you’ll get along much better.  In illustration of this let me share the following story from my time in Turkey.

     I was there from 1971 through 1973 in the military. I served as a Sergeant assigned to the Hospital for preventative medicine purposes.  That’s kind of a BIG title basically meaning that I was trained to handle things that were medically based, but did not fall under someone else’s specific job duties.  Our department handled water samples, sound surveys, hearing tests and other such needs.  However, I digress from my story.

     While stationed there during this period of time many of the single GIs would get housing off base and then HIRE a local to do their cleaning, shopping, and other odd jobs for them.  They would pay this person about fifty dollars a month to all this work PLUS wait on them hand and foot.  A GOOD wage at that time was the equivalent of about $2 American money per day.  They would make these poor people treat them as if they were gods, when many of them were only making about $600-700 per month themselves!

     My point is that we should all strive to treat people as fellow humans.  And as humans they all deserve to be treated decently and with respect.  It’s hard to imagine, but the brief little story that I shared from years ago happened in many other locations around the world.  Today, it is probably worse.    

QUOTE TO CONSIDER

THOUGHTFUL GEM

"Keep Smiling ---

You'll be surprised at how far it gets you!"