Stories of Kindness from Around the World

The changing point in my life came when I was in London. I had to stay the weekend in the city centre for a professional exam. It's an expensive place to stay and I barely had enough money.

Walking away from the city centre into a residential area, I was approached by a young Irish woman. She promised she wasn't a beggar, insisted she had a baby in one the nearby flats but she had no food for him. Could I please help?

In my cynicism I just assumed she WAS a beggar. In my pocket I had one pound eighty pence in change and a twenty pound note. This was all I had for the rest of the weekend.  I gave her the change and went to walk on past. Then I heard her muttering something and I turned back. "Sorry, for being ungrateful and all, but this isn't going to buy much in the way of baby food. Is it?"

For a second I was really annoyed at her cheek and tempted to walk away. After all, her baby (if there was a baby) wasn't my responsibility. What did she expect from me? Part of my mind screamed that she was just trying to take me for a fool.

But what if she wasn't?

There and then I had to decide what kind of person I was going to be. Would I be "smart" and keep myself from being taken advantage of - and possibly miss the chance of helping in a genuine case of need? Or would I let people take advantage of me nine times out of ten to make sure I helped that tenth time?

I realised that if I lived with an open and accepting heart the people who took advantage of me would not be winning over me. They would be losing because of the life they chose to live. In living with an open heart I could only win, no matter how many times I believed people who were lying to me.

"Please be telling the truth," I said to the woman and gave her the twenty pounds.

I've been living by that decision twenty years now - and never regretted it once.