I was part of a great conspiracy yesterday! I got an sms from a friend telling me about these abandoned dogs in Pasir Ris, only 2 weeks to live and they will be put down, 75 dogs, all pure breed and left to their fate, blah blah. As I have just started a 'gratitude' facebook page called Big Thanks, and this month happens to be 'kindness' month, I thought - WOW what a great opportunity to do something kind and pass it on, maybe I can help? So I forwarded it to my phonebook and felt all happy and smug.
A while later, another friend told me it was a fake - her friend had called the place on the sms and they had never heard such a thing. Red faced and tail between legs (excuse the pun), I sms my friends again to say, 'oops, I was wrong.' Then I sat and reflected on what just happened, funnily enough when I get one of these email things, I either automatically delete it, or I google it to check its validity and its almost always a fake. But for whatever reason, the fact it was an sms, so easy to just forward, it felt good sitting waiting for the bus and doing something pro-active as well, it was just the simplest thing to forward without thinking. It brought me to notice that kindness should not be blind. When we are trying to be kind, its important to be awake and to be responsible. There's no point getting angry at the person who started it (though I did go there - 'why would someone start something like this, what sort of sick mind must they have?' blah blah) because ultimately I chose to forward it without checking first, and so the mud has to stick onto my face.
The second thing that came out of it was that another friend, in the midst of all this flurry of sms, reminded me of all the fun she was having reconnecting with a whole bunch of people and it lit me up like a lightbulb - wow! She was so right, I had a great 15 minutes connecting with people, sms beeping all over the place, little conversations going on with many people at once, it was a lot of fun!
The final lesson was really a reminder of the first - RESPONSIBILITY! When I got home my original source sms me to say her friend was volunteering at the shelter, so it was real, I laughed out loud and jumped online and sure enough, both my friends were right. There have been dogs abandoned, they have been rescued and need a home, but they are not at the address as stated in the sms, which is an unauthorised spam. Someone else who thought they were being kind had started an sms ring but the info was both misleading and the address incorrect, so it was causing a lot more problems. My final reminder that kindness without responsibility is often not very helpful at all!
So to get to the original source, take a look at www.dogmilllrehomers.blogspot.com, and maybe you'll be moved to show a little kindness today too!
