Sometimes Disney is pretty spot-on with its lessons and the songs that go along with them.
Cue High School Musical’s “We’re All in This Together.”
I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a completely imperfect person. I try to be nice and loving to people, but there are certainly times I fail. It’s not easy to be a good person all of the time—impatience, frustration, selfishness and so many things on our agendas often get in the way.
But every once in a while, we need the reminder of how important it is to show people that they matter.
If I’m being perfectly honest, life hasn’t been very easy lately. I’ve been dealing with some different things, and it feels like the troubles (you know, like an inflamed kidney) keep piling on. I’ve been trying to stay positive and hopeful, but some days feel more defeating than others. So, creating a mess on top of the mess I’ve been isn’t exactly ideal.
But it happened, anyway.
I was at Target the other day, and there was a shirt hanging on one of the higher racks against the wall that I needed (yes, it was a necessity) to get down. The shirts were all out of size order, so the size I needed was more in the middle. I’m not sure how the ensuing event occurred, but it did. I was struggling to get the shirt down because of a slight height disadvantage, and I became annoyed and tried yanking the dang thing.
Insert mess.
In doing so, I managed to knock off pretty much the entire front half of that rack, and the shirts spewed all over the place at my feet. I stared at the daunting task before me of putting them all back on the rack I could barely reach (I swear this Target put them higher than most), and I tried not to be upset about it.
But I wanted to cry—I felt like there are so many messes I’m having trouble picking up, and I can’t seem to reach being able to fix them, anyway.
Before an impending breakdown happened, a woman came up beside me and bent down to start helping me hang the shirts back up. She wasn’t wearing khaki pants and a red shirt, so I knew she wasn’t a Target employee. I told her she didn’t have to do that, but she said, “I know. I want to.”
We completed the cleanup together, and I thanked her for helping me. I don’t know if she could tell I was on the verge of tears for things far bigger than some shirts on the ground, but she said something that stuck with me.
“You’re here. I’m here. Working together just made more sense to me. I wasn’t about to sit back and watch you clean that up alone or pretend I didn’t see it.”
Working together made more sense to me.
I wish more people had that mindset. There’s a lot going on in our world—and in our nation alone—currently, and I think we sometimes forget the importance of showing people love and grace and letting them know they matter. The woman in Target showed me that at a time when I needed it most. Chances are we’re all going through our own stuff, and we could all use a little bit of grace from one another.
Working together makes more sense.
Remember VHS tapes? Way back in the day, there would often be a little sticker on the VHS tape you rented that said, “Be kind. Please rewind.” It was there to remind you to rewind the tape after you watched it so that it would be ready for the next person. It was a reminder of a simple act of kindness and consideration—helping someone else simply for the purpose of helping someone else.
Maybe we need more sticker reminders. Maybe those “I voted” stickers really translate to “I voted, and I still love you if you didn’t vote or if you voted for someone I didn’t.” But that’s too many words for one small sticker, so it was kept short for space purposes. I’m going to believe it actually means the longer version, though.
Because working together makes more sense.
