"What Makes a Good Person?" And Thoughts on the Vegas Shooting
It’s so easy to get consumed in all the negativity and temptation being spewed from every direction. Being a good person isn’t limited to a certain color, class, creed career, or even political party. With the ever growing popularity of social media, you get to see all sorts of negative and just plain hateful garbage that you weren’t exposed to just ten years ago. Everyone wants to be an expert in every subject no matter their qualifications or knowledge. Everyone wants to tell you how to do your job no matter their experience. At the end of the day, you can’t let the negativity and the naysayers impact your drive to be a positive influence.
I have worked in fire and EMS for four years now, and I get to walk into people’s lives as a hero. I’m automatically perceived as a “good person” due to my job. You see, as a fire fighter or an EMT, I’m a sign of help during people's troubled times. I’d love to tell you that all fire fighters, EMTs, and paramedics are exceptional people, but I try my best not to lie. Police officers however automatically get labeled as bad people due to the nature of the job. When a police officer comes, often times it costs someone a lot of money, either in tickets, fines, or jail time. I will say that I’ve worked side by side with some phenomenal men and women LEOs that have had to be “the bad guy.” America has been struck with great tragedy lately. Natural disaster and terrorists have tried to destroy America recently, but I’ve witnessed people from all walks of life come together and help one another during these hard times. People from different states helping people they’ve never met, and never will meet across the country and not expect anything in return. JJ Watt raised over 37 million dollars for hurricane Harvey relief to donate to people he will never meet. You see several videos on Facebook of good people walking to work just to do their job, being a reliable employee, and their boss/coworkers buying them a car.
Unfortunately, there was a mass shooting in Vegas this weekend. While this was a terrible incident, stories of heroism from every day people continued to poor in. Stories of husbands and boyfriends shielding their wives and girlfriends. Stories of veterans taking initiative and guiding people to safety. Stories of ladies piling injured people in their cars and taking them to the hospital and going back for more. Stories of police officers running towards gunfire when they were severely out gunned. Stories of medial professionals nursing victims. Even a story of an off duty fire fighter getting shot while performing CPR on a victim.
These people are your good people, these people are exceptional people. Every day heroes dressed in plain clothes helping people in their time of need. Some people have a duty to act, to help others when they are helpless. Some people choose to make a career out of it. Some people choose to be hero’s when nobody’s looking. It makes me proud to be a part of this great nation. I’m very relieved to see people come together and help each other in this day and time when evil is everywhere.
