With a political killing dominating the news, it may be easy to forget that goodness still abounds. Instead, it can seem as if darkness is feeding on itself. People wonder how the United States can emerge from an era of endless bad will.
But that’s not a complete picture.
A theory
I have a theory to offer. It is that extreme acts of honesty and goodness can create copycats of their own. Goodness can trigger an upward spiral. In some cases, kind acts can fly on tireless wings that carry them around the world endlessly.
Take the case of Jose Nuñez Romaniz, a 19-year-old in Albuquerque who ran an errand to an ATM back in 2020. He intended to deposit enough money so he could buy his grandfather some socks online.
When he got there, he found a large clear plastic bag on the ground near the machine, filled with $135,000 in $20s and $50s, enough to buy socks for everyone he knew, for the rest of his life.
Except that he knew that wouldn’t be right.
Nuñez called the police. Oh, he thought about it for a moment. “When I first saw it, I kind of stared at it for a few seconds, not knowing what to do,” he told the New York Times in 2020. He called the police instead of the number on the ATM because he didn’t want anyone to suspect him of trying to take the money.
Nuñez, who at the time was a criminal justice student at Central New Mexico Community College, ended up being honored by the mayor and the police chief for his honesty. He received a scholarship, gift cards, football tickets and the opportunity for a job with the police.
Perhaps more importantly, the story of what he did keeps circulating on social media, over and over. I found an Instagram account of it that was posted two weeks ago, and a Facebook post dated Sept. 7.
Despite the usual snarky comments one would expect from social media (“So he gets 0.37% as a reward. Wow.”) the message comes through clearly. Doing the right thing reverberates.
What his parents taught
That was what 18-year-old Nate Affourtit said his parents had taught him. “They teach me to be a light in the dark these days,” he told WTVF in Tennessee earlier this year after he returned an envelope full of money to a woman who had left it behind in a restaurant where Affourtit is a server.
The owner of the money, identified only as Lola, didn’t notice it missing until she was home. Calling the restaurant was a last resort.
It’s not as if Affourtit couldn’t have used the money. He is a college student working five days a week, but he never gave temptation a second thought when he found the envelope near a booth. “I was so shocked someone who had the opportunity to, when no one was looking, take this and do whatever he needed to do with it, he came forward and that was sweet for us. That money is a big deal,” Lola said.
A stray bag
Then there is the exchange student who returned home a few months ago for the Jewish holidays. As PIX11 television in New York reported, a cab driver handed him a strange bag as he drove off, saying, “Someone left this.”
He was gone before the student, who asked to remain anonymous, could tell him it wasn’t his.
Inside the bag, the student found jewelry estimated at $100,000, including Rolex watches, loose diamonds, other jewelry and cash.
His mother advised him to give it to a Brooklyn public safety group called Shmira, which ended up finding the owner.
Levi Leifer, Director of the Shmira chapter, described the owner’s reaction when he opened the bag and saw nothing had been taken. “You had to see his eyes,” he said.
The lost wallet
And then there’s Richard Guilford of Petersburg, Michigan, who last month got his wallet back, complete with the $15 it contained when he lost it in 2014. USA Today said it had slipped out of Guilford’s pocket as he was repairing the electrical system of a brand-new red Ford Edge SUV at an assembly plant. Eleven years later, a mechanic had trouble putting the car’s airbox back in place and discovered the wallet was in the way.
“He messaged me in the middle of the night with a picture of it and said, ‘Did you lose your wallet years ago?’” Guilford said. “For 11 years, that wallet was riding on top of the transmission, held in there by the airbox.”
Maybe you feel a little better after reading these stories.
Sometimes it seems bad news can make its way around the world before kindness and honesty have the chance to tie their shoelaces.
When that happens, it never takes long to find plenty of examples of people doing good things. Good people seem to make up an overwhelming majority of the population. That’s not only reassuring, but it should also help you sleep better at night.