#WhatILearntThisWeek
“I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.” Blanche DuBois, A Streetcar Named Desire.
I am writing this in a local cafe using someone else’s log in and password 🙂 A recent mega storm rocked my suburb and I posted updates of what was happening with the intention of sharing my experience. Luckily even though for a time I could not access my home and then couldn’t stay there for a few days I was sweetly surprised by the offers of help form absolute and relative strangers.
I posted a short video of the devastation on a local community group just to let everyone know what is going on and I received offers of help from strangers I had never even heard of before. People were offering to help me out with somewhere to stay, a meal or an opportunity to charge my devices. It was really lovely.
I was very lucky to have family very near by and they took us in without question or complaint. It was actually kind of fun to have extra hanging out time with my sister and brother-in-law – it seems you have different conversations when you visit someone verses when you stay in the same space for a while.
It was comforting to see neighbours helping each other out and a lovely man who I had not met until the storm even came to my house and helped is cut down a badly damaged tree.
Then when I did the #firstworldproblem whinge about no internet and using up all of my mobile data, someone I worked with 20 years ago offered to share his log in and password to his Telstra Air account so that I could access the net via his credentials.
I am often too proud to ask for help but this experience has taught me that it is not just offering help that makes a community – accepting it is also part of the deal.
Thank you to everyone who offered and helped. I live in a wonderful world.
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[su_button url=”/my-work/what-i-learnt-this-week-2016/” style=”flat” background=”#fc1581″ color=”#ffffff” size=”5″ icon=”icon: plus-circle”]All #WhatILearntThisWeek 2016[/su_button] [su_button url=”/blog/what-i-learnt-this-week-2016-week-3/” style=”flat” background=”#01d801″ color=”#ffffff” size=”5″ icon=”icon: arrow-circle-right”]Read the NEXT #WhatILearntThisWeek[/su_button]
[su_button url=”/my-work/what-i-learnt-this-week/” style=”flat” background=”#0097ff” color=”#ffffff” size=”5″ icon=”icon: hand-o-left”]See 2015’s #WhatILearntThisWeek[/su_button]
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