What I learned from… a sidewalk

The streets in Manila are crowded with vendors selling all sorts of wares. First picture shows a boy selling bubble toys and demonstrating it in the process by throwing bubbles in the air The second one is making her living telling fortunes of people. There are lots of fortunetellers like her just outside a church in Quiapo, a crowded district in our city. It seems an irony that you profess your faith and then outside, there are lots of old women claiming to tell the future, and more.

I always try to buy from vendors like the “bubble boy” because it always pays to support people who make a living the honest way. I get to think that the money they earn from peddling is sending him or his siblings to school or paying for his family’s meager meal for the day. That’s not much to ask for us who have good jobs and have a lot to spare.

I get to be thankful that life has given me and my loved ones good opportunities. We can appreciate ourselves more because working on the streets is more dangerous and difficult and doesn’t pay as much. When it’s time to complain, I think of that little boy on the street and there are two things to do: pray that life gets better for them, and thank ourselves for our little blessings.

This is my entry to “What I Learned From … A Sidewalk” happening over at Middle Zone Musings.