Trying to keep a good mood going, as befits a first-show-of-the-year attitude, let's go to one of our occasional features, the Hero Award, given as the occasion arises to someone who just does the right thing on a matter big or small.Our hero this time is a man named Thomas. We don't know his full name. He appears in a video by a YouTube by prankster named Josh Paler Lin.
There are a bunch of videos on YouTube that are various forms of pranks: some silly, some not, some that are mean. This one had the potential to be mean.
In the video, Lin gives $100 to a homeless man who can be heard saying his name is Thomas. Lin then secretly follows Thomas to see how the cash gets spent. When Thomas goes into a liquor store, Lin initially thinks he's got his answer. But he continues filming and discovers that, contrary to what he expected, Thomas had purchased food which he gave out to other homeless people in a nearby park.
In fact, if you explore YouTube a bit you can find multiple videos showing the same sort of generosity, proving over and over a fact so well-established that it has to be regarded as a truism: The poor, who have so little, are more generous, far more generous, far kinder, far more willing to share, than the rich who have more than they could ever possibly use.
So Thomas, you are by no means the only one, but you are a symbol of the rest. And you are a hero.
Sources cited in links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NiWxrpikWgs
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/24/homeless-man-100_n_6378022.html
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