I thought about the movie Pay it Forward and how it spread the idea that if you do 3 nice things for 3 strangers and ask them to not pay it back to you, but instead pay it forward, can we start to change the world? When this movie came out in 2000, the thought of paying it forward resonated in the minds of many.
A few years later I experienced my own "pay it forward" moment while on vacation with my family. We we're driving to South Carolina, and passing through Virginia at the time. The toll booths we passed through were becoming pretty routine, especially because we pass through these same ones every summer. My dad is always driving, and my mom is in charge of getting the $1.25 ready to pass off to the collector.
After waiting in line for a few minutes, we pulled up to the window only to find that the car in front of us had already paid. Baffled my dad asked the woman to repeat herself, and we drove off with all of our jaws dropped to the ground. We speed up to take a look at the silver sedan that had been in front of us, and the man driving looked over and just smiled. We had never seen this man before in our lives.
Although I knew we would never see this man every again, we knew that by his small gift of $1.25, he had made our day. When we pulled up to the next booth, my mom handed my dad $2.50, and told the lady that we were indeed paying for the next car.
I know this is a lot smaller than the Wal-Mart gift, but it's not the price that matters, it's the idea. I would like to hear other stories like this and blog about them for awhile. They seem to be important slices of life. Thinking about the man who paid our toll brings a smile to my face years later. Thinking about the movie Pay it Forward makes me think that we should bring this idea back a little by the small things we can do, and not expect anything back.
"Is it possible,
For one idea,
To change the world"
-Pay it Forward
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