I believe our true nature will be revealed at the most stressful situation.
On January 17th 1995, I experienced the big earthquake, Great Hanshin Earthquake in Kobe, Japan.
I would like to share my friend’s experience. At the time of the earthquake, he was living alone. His apartment was about 25 mile (40 km) away from his parents. The first thing that everybody thinks at the disaster is about their family, so was he. He wanted to go back to his family’s house. He didn’t have a car, and he knew none of the public transportations were available. All he could go back to his parents’ house was to walk.
The entire city was out of electricity, gas, and water. He needed to buy some water and food for his long walk, so he stopped by the closest store.
It was a small convenience store. There were around 20 people in the store. My friend first observed the other customers. He was surprised at what he saw. Even in such panicky situation, all the customers stayed being polite, never pushed each other; nothing like the scenery we watch in the panic movies. The cash register was not working. Anybody could steal whatever they wanted in such a hectic situation, but nobody did. Everybody paid for the items, leaving the appropriate amount of cash at the casher counter.
As he walked, he encountered many houses crashed and heard some people’s voice asking for help somewhere in the crashed houses. He rescued some people out from the crashed houses. It took him 10 hours to finally arrive at his parent’s house. He told me his experiences to save people’s lives would stay being his best deeds in his life.
My family and I went through the life without running water and gas line for more than one month. During that time, we had received lots of supports and encouragements from the people from other towns and cities.
Natural disaster is not a fun experience at all, but at least I appreciate that I could experience and encounter many good hearted people offering help to one another.
This earthquake taught us lots of valuable lessons. I really hope to see people helping one another at the most stressful situation in the future. But most of all, I want to be one of them helping people.
three wisdom 