Around 6:30pm two days ago, while I was walking around Ala Moan’s Ward Warehouse shopping center, the lights started flickering, and all of sudden I found myself immersed in darkness. The entire island of Oahu was out of power and it would take at least 12 hours for the Hawaiian Electric Company to bring the power back. The blackout was supposedly due to the lightning strikes on the island.
During that time, people started evacuating the shopping center, heading straight to their cars, and driving back home. Traffic was horrible. While my family and I decided to wait at the shopping center until the roads cleared up, my friend told me that it took him about 45 minutes to travel about 1 mile. The entire island of Oahu lost all of power practically at once, which meant that all traffic signals turned off with no one to direct traffic immediately. Everyone was either waiting for the traffic to clear up, sitting in bumper to bumper traffic, or lucky enough to already be home, except one person who was able to put aside everything and do good. This man stepped out of his car, pulled out an LED light and directed traffic to the 100s of cars in the crowded streets of downtown Honolulu. Rather than focusing on heading back home like everyone else, this man gave up his time to do good.
Rick Warren, author of best selling book A Purpose Driven Life wrote,
“When you give someone your time, you are giving them a portion of your life that you will never get back. Your time is your life. That is why the greatest gift anyone can give someone is your time.”
This man, gave up his time to help others and I doubt received any reciprocation of that time he gave up other than a “thank you” from a passing drivers. Although I do not know the name of this man who helped to do good for the city of Honolulu, he definitely inspired me give up more of my time to assist others.
Pictures are courtesy of the Honolulu Advertiser.
