20 Bucks

I went out with a newly found friend (and extremely English) Alexandra and Colin yesterday to Boston Commons. After making utter fools of ourselves with the hilarity that ensued from an inability to play frisbee effectively (while counting in Serbo-Croat), we headed back. As a true tourist, Alex was taking pictures; meanwhile a uniquely dressed man approached us with a form about the Aids Walk.

Twenty dollars he asked of Colin and me: A donation to support this man who was HIV positive. And so I donated twenty dollars.

But the entire way home I wondered, why? Why did I donate, when I myself am not in a financially secure situation? Twenty dollars is quite the sum of money. As we walked away, another gentlemen spoke with the same stout interestingly clothed man and they held a conversation that made us question the validity of his request. Was it a scam? I later found out the AIDS walk ended a month ago.

Regardless, for some reason I decided to give this man twenty dollars. It was not out of generosity - my own organization needed the donation. I walked away not regretting what I had done, but more I was curious as to why did I do something that was so innately out of character for me. A few coins or dollars--yes, I would give to a seemingly genuine cause or person in need. But twenty dollars was a high sum of money for anyone to receive in an easy handout.

Overall, I feel blessed that I'm able to wonder about why I gave him twenty dollars, rather than being the one required to scam or beg for money. What scares me the most still, is that for all the reasoning and logic I have planted in my mind, there are still brief moments when I cast rationality aside and act far from who I believe myself to be. So then one has to wonder in the moments when no logical conclusion can be drawn from our anomalous actions, does what we do serve a greater purpose? Did that twenty dollars become part of a change beyond the context of what I can understand and for that reason it was destined to happen? In the end, I can only hope that that gentleman's motives were true and that my donation was in fact a donation to AIDS walk, but at the very least this one source of randomness has caused me to reflect and wonder... just what am I in the inner-workings of the grand scheme of the universe?

Yes. I know that was mystic. And it was an illogical post in itself. But in the confusion, it becomes difficult to think it a sequential manner. Happy July!