I can’t win as a neighbour
I previously wrote about how I felt like a nosy neighbour. After that I was made to feel like a bad neighbour for doing something good.
The world has been gripped by images of natural disasters during hurricane season. The hurricane and resulting floods have left hundreds of thousands of people displaced, homeless or worse – dead.
Last Friday when the whole thing started it was refreshing to see people offering words of encouragement on TV and on social media. There’s also that negative group of people that turned the weather disaster into a political rant. (I think we know what country those people are in.)
So for a brief moment it was nice to hear and read the supportive words. I even offered up some advice after CNN tweeted for people to take pictures and videos and send them in. I suggested it wasn’t the smartest thing to waste phone batteries in an emergency for the sake of giving CNN content. You won’t believe this: but I was attacked. Hard.
You see, it was the anti-CNN people who pounced on me asking why I was afraid of seeing real news and questioned why I only wanted censored news from the American cable network. It’s true, they did. All of that just from my tip – that was trying to help people and suggest they be smart with their battery use so they weren’t left without an emergency lifeline in the event of a days-long power outage.
When some people noticed I was from Canada they flipped it around and started picking out things about this country I should focus my attention on – in a roundabout way of telling me to mind my own business.
Silly me for thinking I would lend some assistance all the way from Canada. I thought Canadians were known for being friendly and I was just doing the Canuck thing.
It’s sad to experience backlash from being a kind-hearted person. And maybe that’s why people are selfish with their time and charitable work these days. If you feel unappreciated as though your assistance isn’t welcome, then why bother?
Nevertheless, I’m hoping for the best with everything happening after the tragic weather events (and evidently presidential election) in the U.S.
