Mine occurred on a hot day in mid-June. I was spending my first summer away from home and staying in East Lansing. At the time, I was working as a photographer for The State News, and I fell into a rut I couldn’t get myself out of. I was overwhelmed with my work and regretted my decision to stay downstate. Overall, I was angry, and was staying angry — an emotion far from how I try to act or would normally describe my personality.

On this day, I was rushing from East Lansing to downtown Lansing and back, searching for a photo story and traveling to different assignments. I was hot, homesick and basically running in a circle of unhappiness.

It happened when I was stopped at a red light heading east on Michigan Avenue, just before crossing Interstate 127. I was in the middle lane when I noticed a homeless man holding a sign asking for food or money — anything — to survive.

As I sat there — nearly cursing to myself about how this is the “downfall of society” — I couldn’t help but think along the lines of: “Why can’t he just get a job like everyone else?”

Meanwhile, the woman in the car beside me pardoned him over and began rummaging through her purse — turning my tone from pretty unpleasant, to flat-out sour.

Again I thought, “Why give money? He’s only going to spend it on drugs. If anything, you should give food.” I was automatically thinking the worst of this poor, homeless, helpless man.
And then I had that moment.

When the man recognized the woman was going to give him something ­— anything at all — his face lit up with pure, genuine happiness. He was more full of raw emotion over a couple of dollars than I had ever seen anyone be about anything before.

I was completely mesmerized.

He proceeded to walk over to the car, still grinning ear to ear, and receive the money from the woman. He then thanked her with a nod and bright, twinkling eyes, and then returned back to his post with his sign and few belongings.

He stood on the grass of the median, looked to the sky and made the sign of the cross, still grinning.

Then, once again, he picked up his sign, stood tall and waited once more to be graced by the kindness of a stranger.

It was as if I had watched this scene in slow motion. A 15-second time span lasted minutes, hours to me. By now, the light had turned green, and I was still sitting at the light, now getting honked at.

All the while, Explosions in the Sky was playing on my radio — making the moment even more monumental for me. So I just cried. I started to bawl right there in my car, holding up the entire intersection.

I was overcome with mixed emotions of guilt and anger. I was horrified at how judgemental I was acting, but above all, I felt love for that homeless man — I felt raw.

A feeling I had yet to find that summer.

I eventually gathered myself and was further down the road, eyes still filled with tears, when an obvious thought set in — this entire time I was focused on all the negatives of my life, while, right down the road, there is a man with no home, assumed no loved ones, who can find happiness and positivity in a couple of dollars.

It not only was a reality check, but this was my turning point.

I had before joked and been told by my dad that “nothing is really real, and it’s all an illusion.” And after that moment, I finally understood what he meant.

It was proof to me that happiness is all in your perception of reality.
Sounds silly, right?

But when a man can find it in a few dollars, or when I can find it in merely witnessing his reaction — it seems a lot less silly.

Ultimately, people choose whether or not they are happy by the way they choose to perceive things. This moment set the tone for the way I viewed the rest of my summer and the way I wanted to feel and live.

After that day, I chose to see things in a way that reflected the positives of life — rather than the negatives.

And I started to recognize that things only are as big of a deal as I choose to make them. In the long run, these “real” things might not be so concrete after all. Objects, people, relationships, situations, even moments, are only as real and relative as how we choose to perceive them.

So in this sense, I have embraced my dad’s notion that nothing, in fact, is actually real. It is all just an illusion.

Samantha Radecki the State News diversity reporter and a journalism junior. Reach her at radeckis@msu.edu.