When to help vs. when not to help?

It is especially easy when you live in a city swarming with people on the streets asking for help to become fearful of your fellow citizen. Thoughts such as, "If I even look at this person and offer a smile, they might think that I am going to offer money and follow me down the street," or "Why should I waste my hard earned pay to feed others drug and alcohol habits" may creep into our psyches causing us to keep our eyes rooted firmly on the grounds and our heads shaking side to side in a firm "no". These thoughts and actions become somewhat of a self-preservation response when you live in a city filled with people who have run out of luck and found themselves living on the streets. Many of these people have serious mental conditions that impair their judgments and therefore it is wise to maintain a certain distance. However, does this conditioning prevent us at times from reaching out to strangers who truly need help?

A couple of months ago, I was walking across the street in my neighborhood when I was approached by a rather disheveled looking man. He was wearing what looked like old, faded blue hospital scrub pants and a dirty white t-shirt. I pegged him for one of the many homeless people living in San Francisco. As I began to cross the street, he followed after me, crying out, "Excuse me, Excuse me." I didn't even want to look at him for fear that I would have to explain why I didn't want to give him any money. Keeping my eyes planted in front of me, my conditioned response of shaking my head while answering, "No sorry. No sorry," came meekly yet firmly out of my mouth. But he was determined for help. While rushing to keep up with me, as I had increased my walking speed in hopes of avoiding the encounter, he explained "Is there any way that I could use your cell phone? I just got out of the hospital and my buddy is coming to pick me up, but he doesn't know where I am. I just need to call him and let him know."

How could I continue walking and ignore this plea for help? On the outside, I had pegged him for a homeless man asking for money, he certainly looked the part. When he asked for something entirely different, I felt awful that I actually had some fear about letting him use my cell phone. I thought, "What if this is some scam and he is using my phone to call some number where they will get information about me and use it to start stealing money from my bank accounts?" or "What if as soon as I hand him my phone, he steals it and runs away?" How horrible that because of the way he looked, I couldn't simply complete an act of kindness because it was the right thing to do. I did let him use my phone, but I put it on speaker phone, so that I could hear the conversation and I knew that there was no chance of him running off with it.

By definition it was an act of kindness, many other people had passed him and continued towards their destinations. However, I didn't feel that great about it because in my mind I harbored judgments about who he was.

When I began writing this post, I meant to write about an incredible act of kindness bestowed upon me and my friends this weekend, but I let the writing process take me another direction. I am still going to tell the story from this weekend, but I suppose the act of receiving kindness has actually had me going back and thinking about my own views as to when I do and when I don't react to the requests of strangers. Do I (or even we as collective citizens) go through some sort of internal processing in determining when to help and when not to help? Do we simply listen to our instincts regarding when it is safe for us to do so? Or, do we help others because they pass our tests of who looks safe or who looks "normal?" I think that it is definitely important to be aware of what kind of risks you are putting yourself in by helping someone, however, at the same time it is so sad to me that we live in a world where people themselves are the danger. I think that this "kindness of strangers" topic is something that I am going to revisit again and again. Let me know what you think.