When a Stranger Reminded Me of Our Humanity

“If we cannot see the human in humanity, how can we see divinity in God?” — Orlando J. Alvarez

The WordPress Daily Prompt asks, “What’s a moment when a stranger completely restored your faith in people?” I have been thinking about that question, and I am not sure I agree with its premise. I can remember strangers helping me throughout my life, but I do not know that every act of kindness is meaningful enough to restore my faith in people. Sometimes there is a relationship, a shared identity, or simply something connecting the person helping to the person receiving the help.

There is one experience, however, that I have never forgotten. What makes it different is not only what a stranger did, but what had happened to me earlier that same day.

When Helping Someone Became a Liability

I was working at an auto parts retail store when a lady needed help with a flat tire. I went outside, put a plug in the tire, inflated it, and got her taken care of. When I came back inside, I found out that I was not allowed to do that.

That really hurt me. I remember thinking, Wow. Customers come first. Help people. Then you get told you should not have done that. I was upset with myself and upset with the company because I had simply seen someone who needed help and responded to what was in front of me.

With time, I understood the company’s position better. There are liability concerns, and companies have policies for a reason. I am not arguing that businesses should operate without regulations or that protecting the organization from unnecessary risk is wrong. That was never the point. I understood the company, and I understood the policy. What bothered me was the human problem underneath it. As much as you may want to help somebody, sometimes you have to be careful how you help because helping can expose you or someone else to liability.

Later that same day, an elderly man came into the store and ordered brakes, pads, and calipers. I got everything together for him while other customers were waiting. When I finished, the younger man behind him put down his card and told me, basically, “You got what I need, but I’m going to help him first.” He walked outside and helped the elderly man carry his parts.

I started crying.

I told that young man, “Man, don’t ever change.” He was younger than me, and what affected me was that, as far as I knew, he had no relationship with the elderly man. I had never seen him before, and I never saw him again. Apparently, neither one knew the other. He gave up his place because another human being needed help.

Maybe the timing is part of why it affected me so deeply. Earlier that day, I had been confronted with all the complications that can surround helping another person. Then I watched this young man make a simple decision. He saw the human being in front of him, and he helped.

But What Does It Mean to Restore Faith in People?

I have another experience that complicates the question for me. When I was nineteen, my first motorcycle was a 1987 Yamaha 400. I broke down so many times it was not even funny, but I do not remember another motorcyclist stopping to help me. Later, I bought a 1997 Harley-Davidson Sportster bored out to 1200, and when I broke down on the side of the road, another motorcyclist would often pull over to see whether I needed help. It did not necessarily matter whether the other person was riding a Harley.

So what changed? Was I a different person standing beside the road, or was it the motorcycle I was riding?

I do not know. Maybe the Harley made me more recognizable as part of a motorcycle culture. Maybe another rider saw something familiar in me. That does not make the assistance meaningless, but it does make me think about why we help one another. People have given me rides home, and I have given people rides home. Coworkers help coworkers. Friends help friends. Families help families. If we count every situation in which people help someone they know or identify with, the stories become endless.

That is why the young man in the auto parts store has always stood apart in my memory. As far as I could tell, he had nothing to gain from helping that elderly man. He gave up his place in line and exposed himself to the inconvenience of somebody else’s problem simply because he could help. It was not some grand heroic gesture. It was closer to seeing someone help an elderly person cross the street or pick up someone’s groceries and carry them to the car. Those moments are ordinary enough that they may never become news, yet they can stay with the person who witnesses them for years.

We are constantly exposed to what is wrong around us, and after enough negativity it can begin to take a toll. We can start believing that humanity itself has disappeared because the worst examples of human behavior are often the ones demanding our attention. Yet somewhere, without recognition and without an audience, someone is still helping another person. I do not know that young man’s name. He probably does not know that I still remember him. But I do.

That makes me wonder whether what he restored was really my faith in people. I do not think I have faith in people in the way the prompt suggests. One stranger cannot prove that humanity is good any more than another stranger can prove that humanity is bad. Perhaps what happened that day was simpler. For a moment, I saw the humanity in another human being.

Would I Have Been That Stranger?

After that experience, I changed something about how I worked. I decided that I did not care how many people were standing in line if an elderly person or somebody who genuinely needed assistance needed my help. I would help them and then come back to everyone else. Somebody has to take initiative, and that young man showed me what taking initiative could look like.

But there is another side to the question that matters more to me now. We spend a great deal of time looking for validation, meaning, symbols, and examples of goodness in other people. We notice someone helping an elderly person and think it is beautiful. We complain when we believe humanity has become selfish or indifferent. How often do we turn that same observation toward ourselves and ask: Have I shown someone else the humanity I keep hoping to see in other people?

That question connects with something I have continued examining in The Silence of a Free Mind. Systems, institutions, companies, laws, beliefs, and policies all have purposes. The problem begins when the system becomes so important that we stop seeing the human being standing inside it. Human dignity has to remain visible even when the circumstances around us are complicated. That is part of what I had not yet learned how to express when I first wrote that manuscript, and it is part of what I continued learning before I returned to it.

I once said, “If God is love, then what is missing is not God, it is love.” The more I have thought about that statement, the more I believe it was too simplistic. If we cannot see the human in humanity, how can we see God in divinity, or divinity in God? Either way you put it, I struggle with the contradiction of claiming to love God while being unable to love another human being, claiming that humanity is gone while doing nothing to help anyone, or claiming to love nature while participating in its destruction.

Perhaps that is why I no longer think the most important question is whether a stranger can restore my faith in people. The stranger at the auto parts store already showed me what he was willing to do. The question that remains belongs to me.

Would I have been that stranger?

By Orlando J. Alvarez
Vision LEON LLC

About the author and the work

Orlando J. Alvarez · Vision LEON LLC

My writing grows through lived experience, questioning, and revision. The Resilient Philosopher (TRP) method guides how I examine ideas, distinguish experience from evidence, and remain open to correction. The Alvarez Stewardship Method carries that inquiry into responsibility for people and the systems they depend on.

These articles are part of a developing body of work. Leading Through Stewardship introduces the journey behind the method. Organizational pilots are an opportunity to apply, test, and refine it in practice.

About Orlando J. Alvarez · Alvarez Stewardship Method · Explore my books