I burned my hand on a hot bag of microwave popcorn the other day. Based on my shriek, you would have thought that I had temporarily morphed into a 7 year old girl. I threw a bag of frozen corn onto the burn, and whined about it to my wife for the rest of the evening. This incident has led me to swear off microwave popcorn for the foreseeable future out of my fear of another burn.
The reason I bring up this story is because it is my roundabout way of making a segue into the idea of fear. Or rather, the idea of fearlessness. Fearlessness is something embodied by the men and women who call themselves firefighters. Granted, I am being incredibly wimpy in this instance, but the fact that I am unwilling to grab a hot bag of popcorn, yet there are those out there willing to risk their lives by running into a burning building speaks volumes of their bravery and character.
KIND Healthy Snacks does a monthly mission of kindness on a given day of each month. February's/Today's mission is to express gratitude in some way to those who serve. I thought I would follow their suggestion and buy lunch for the Engine 4 Firefighters here in Chicago for my random act of kindness today. I stopped in to let the guys know that I was going to get their lunch, and they were more than grateful. They even gave me a T-shirt and took a picture with me in front of one of the fire trucks. I wanted to let them know that there are people out there who really appreciate what they do and the risks that they take. There was a small fire in my building last Saturday night, and I found out that the Engine 4 guys were the first ones on the scene. I guess this is just my small way of paying them back for keeping my family safe.
Seriously awesome!
ReplyDeleteI can't wait to go through all your posts and see what yo'uve been up to. I am loving the titles of them so far, and as someone who shovels her own 50 ft driveway and clears the front steps all by myself, I LOVE that you cleared the snow from people's cars on your street of all the snow. You're doing an amazing thing!
I just completed a project too called The Year of Hugging Fearlessly (speaking of being fearless) where I hugged a minimum of one new person every day for 365 days and documented it by taking a photo. It was the most rewarding thing I've ever done in my entire life, and I do a lot of things! So thank you for making the world a better place, one kind act at a time..not just for your daughter, but for the rest of us too. :)
Saw your story on Inside Edition last night!!! What an inspiring story!! Keep up the wonderful work! Can't wait to see what you do the rest of the year! God Bless you from GA!
ReplyDeleteRyan,
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to say thank you for doing this. Your kindness and resolve are extremely encouraging and inspirational.
Additionally, I am a brother of the Sigma Chi Fraternity at the University of Chicago and I was wondering if you would be willing to come down to Hyde Park and speak to our chapter a little bit about your experiences and what you've learned so far. I think you'd be a fantastic speaker for us and help inspire and motivate our chapter to continue and improve our community service efforts. I'm sure you're busy with a million other things, but if this is something you'd be interested, I'd love to hear from you. You can reach me by e-mail at bo.shi90@gmail.com.
Thank you again and keep up the great work!
Garc, you are the man!!!!!
ReplyDelete-Fahms
What a great thing to do!
ReplyDelete