It hadn't been a great morning as I'd had a hard time sleeping the night before thanks to a combination of indigestion and a nightmare involving a yellow scorpion the size of a shoebox which I thought was fossilized and turned out to be anything but.
I blame the Harry Dresden novel I read a few weeks back for that image lingering in my head.
Needless to say, it was the sort of Monday where a pick-me-up was needed and part one came when a friend of mine who's been struggling to find work for the last couple years asked me for a favor, which I was happy to oblige.
I took a little further and as we'd worked together in radio when I first broke in, I figured it might help things if she had a proper recommendation from someone still working in the business.
She was quite happy when she saw it, and if it helps get her back on her feet then I'll consider my job done.
The second part came about an hour later or so when a friend I've been hanging out with a lot lost her laptop when it slipped off her bed and cracked on the floor. The LCD shattered and the laptop, which was a dying animal anyway, was lost. Because she's a single mother without much money, buying a brand-new replacement was out of the question, but she's also a fellow writer and is working on a multi-volume book series. It's been her life for the last two years, and she's already put a great deal of time and work into it.
She also has a very precocious and adorable two-year-old daughter she's trying to provide a better life for. Without the laptop, no book. No book, not much chance to get that life. Now sadly, I don't have a couple hundred dollars sitting around to help either, otherwise I would've just done that and the problem is solved.
Since that wasn't an option, I ended up doing the next thing I know how to do. I put the word out to people I know seeing if they had a decent substitute they could donate, and I got lucky. Twice. My best friend and a co-worker both have a laptop and a desktop computer they don't need anymore and could donate them to her.
I didn't set out to do these things when I got up yesterday, nor are they things I do all the time. But I'd like to think I do them more often than most people for a simple reason. I like to help people. If there are problems I can do something about and rectify, I try to do it.
It's not about ego or gaining favors or being considered a hero to anyone. I just like being able to do something that makes a difference for someone else. People I care about and mean a lot to me have done the same when I needed it, so I'm fine with doing the same for someone else.
I don't see the harm in that.
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