My wife's shift starts early in the morning, I always accompany her during my rest days. One morning on my way home, after I escorted her to work, I noticed the streets were so quiet, a bit cloudy and complemented by a cool breeze. "My kind of morning" I say, I thought of grabbing a cup of coffee to complete it. While I was cruising down the street something caught my attention from a far, a sack-like figure and seemed to be scattered all over the side walks, surprisingly the wind didn't seem to budge it. The looks of it was so blurred and the more I move closer to it the more it became vivid. And there I was stunned on what I saw, a pack of family sleeping on the pedestal with some cardboard and thin native cloth used as a sheet between them and the pedestal.
The children were sitting down on the lower platform, one is looking a far, a face that was taken by the chasms of her thoughts, while the other was just tinkering with some papers trying to make a rocket out of it. The adults were still asleep not knowing the children were awake and the idea of what might happen to the little ones if they freely cross the streets. And there was this baby, maybe less than 10 months by the judge of it, also awake and was crawling away from her mother towards the cliff of the pedestal. I noticed one of the adult is pregnant, I sighed and frowned as I stood and then I turned my head back to the baby as it was about to fall. I ran and grabbed the baby, put her back right beside her mother, carefully I shook her mother's shoulder and told to keep an eye on the baby. The mother just shrugged and continued to sleep while the baby just hinged her head on her mother's knees. After a few moments, the mother woke up smiled at the baby, calls for the other children to come closer and out of the thin cloth the mother handed the children a handful of bread wrapped in plastic. The other members started to get up, one of them pulled a portable stove placed a dented pot and poured water into it to prepare a hot drink for the other guys. The children couldn't be more happier as they ran along the side walks while the rest is getting ready to hit the streets not knowing the predicament ahead of them.
These types of people travels from one city or place to another, searching for the right place where they could settle. The instant usual reactions of an average person seeing these are "oh poor them", "this is what you get if you don't earn a degree or just finish high school maybe", "where's the government aid?", "what's the social welfare's plan for this?", "why can't they go back to their provinces" and more.
But are we so different from them? Don't we also strive for survival just like them? Ever thought that they also enjoy life at its best? Rich and average people are facing different types of problems everyday, what to wear for work, what to do this weekend, saving money to upgrade gadgets, problem with your boss made you quit your job then you hop to another company etc. It seems that the rich and average people have more difficulties in life compared to this pack of family who just wanders in the streets at day time and sleeps in the pedestal at night.
What made these "street explorers" apart from us is that they're so special, we didn't notice that they're teaching us something. From them we will learn that life is always good and simple. We sometimes put more efforts in our overrated ambitions that we are too delusional to think of it as a goal, and every time we fail, it always has a negative butterfly effect which leads to complicate our simple lives. God reminds us that in whatsoever state we are, therewith to be content.
After I took a few photos of them I decided to go home and fix my own coffee as a reward of what I've learned.
People are equally blessed. It’s just a matter of what attitude you show in accepting the blessings.
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