Pay it forward

This is a short post about the idea in Catherine Ryan Hyde's book "Pay it Forward" which also got made into a movie by the same name. In this movie, Haley Joel Osment plays a small kid (Trevor McKinney) going to school. Kevin Spacey, who plays his school social science teacher asks the class to come up with ideas that can have an effect on entire mankind, and then also put it into action.

Trevor in the movie thinks that if he is able to do something really good to help 3 people in the world, and if all those people instead of paying it back to him went on to each pay the favor forward to 3 people who really needed them, then in a short while the number of people who would feel indebted to a stranger would grow exponentially. If this urge to keep paying it forward survives, it could reform entire mankind in a very efficient yet simple manner.



I liked the cast, the plot, and the very sensitive way the film was shot. In all it was thought provoking. And then while I was wondering I realized that entire nature including all the animals and plants (including mankind ofcourse) has already been doing something, and shall continue do that same thing, that reflects this very notion of "Paying it Forward".

It is the very special way parents love and care for their offspring. Look at plants first. One single plant will take great care to create and protect its fruit, filling it with both seeds and required nutrition. That fruit will never be able to repay anything back to the parent plant, but will surely take equal care of its own fruit. This is true for mankind too. No matter what we do, we can never repay our parents for what they have done for us in their lives. And if you are learning from nature, you will know how to love them back and take care of them all you can, without trying to repay any of theirs. For the love we got from them is meant for us to learn from and then pay it forward to our own children.

So it really feels nice to know that such a beautiful concept lies awake in action right around us, if only we make the effort to notice. No wonder they say There's no place like home!!