Honorable Mention - Shawn Goodman, Age 35

Welcome to our Optimistic Essay category. Here you will find the $1,000 winning contest essay, 5 finalist essays and 15 honorable mention essays and a growing list of hand-picked select essays that readers submitted during our "Why Are You Optimistic About the Future?" contest. This is a special category dedicated to those who took the time to share their touching stories and bright perspectives with HappyNews.com.

I'll tell you why there's hope. Be careful, though, because it's not what you think: nothing earth shattering or heartbreaking. No heroes or urban saints. No billionaire philanthropists. In fact, it's something small. So small you may have to prepare for the anticlimax of it. I will point it out to you so you don't miss it, or I should say him, the grubby looking man at a bus stop in Reno. See him with the long scraggly hair, stubble beard, prison tattoos? His right forearm is in a cast, no doubt from a drunken bar fight. I notice him as I drive by in my pickup. I notice him the same way I notice other possible dangers. It's good to be a little defensive these days. It's good to be safe. So I say.

I drive over a section of road that's torn to hell and my ride bounces severely. It makes me wonder about the lumber and tools in the bed. I bought one of those nice plastic liners to protect the paint, but it's slippery; cargo tends to slide. Then someone behind me lays on the horn and blinks the lights. It's an old man in a Toyota Avalon, a safe car. Maniacs and serial killers don't drive Avalons. Pull over, pull over, he shouts. I do as he says. Your stuff, it fell out of your truck a couple blocks ago. You lost all your stuff. You should go back.

What's this guy talking about? I'm slightly disoriented, but then I remember: the red oak boards, the bag of tools, several hundred bucks worth. I look in the back. The bed is empty. Right away I'm nervous and sweating. I think of the ex-con at the bus stop making off with my new Porter Cable drill. Or maybe a big truck runs it over and smashes it to bits. A cold feeling creeps into me, the one you get when someone cheats you or rips you off. Of course nobody's ripped me off, but it feels that way. I just lost about four hundred dollars. How can I afford to repurchase those tools? I can't.

I make three right turns, coming up on the bumpy section of road by the bus stop. Adrenaline courses through me. I feel like a kid waiting for a grade on an important test. The kid thinks mistakenly that, somehow, his tension and worry will improve the grade. Of course, it doesn't. He passes the test or he fails… regardless of the emotion. He gets the job or he doesn't. My things will either be intact or smashed or gone. I know this is all true, but I can't let go. I'm not in any danger or risk yet I am keyed up. It's like this moment stands for all the other moments when I've felt stupid, careless, and embarrassed. They flash in my head.

Then a calm voice speaks. It's over here, under the bench. I look up to see him, the man with the cast and the prison tattoos. He's sitting on a bench guarding my stuff. I figured you might come back, he says, those are nice tools.. It's all there: boards neatly stacked, three plastic bags filled with tools. I am surprised. I am happy. I thank him profusely and try to give him a twenty, a ride, dinner… anything to show my appreciation. He shakes my hand and smiles, but refuses. Politely. Says it's no big deal. This aberrant gesture of kindness is no big deal! And perhaps he is right…because I quickly forget. I forget and I move on. I progress. I move forward. So I say.

Two thousand miles away from Reno, the memory of this gesture is gone. Gone too are the pickup, oak boards, and the tools. Things have changed so much for me. I now own a house. I have children. I drive a minivan. These days, if I do haul a load of lumber, I strap it down nice and tight and staple a red flag on the end. I am careful… to protect what I own, to look out for my family.

And still, a wild image flashes across my mind. It is a film clip in my head of the tattooed man in Reno with the cast on his arm: dashing into the street to help me, a stranger, a cynical man who fears being ripped off and taken advantage of. It takes him three trips to retrieve everything, then several minutes in the baking heat to stack the boards. They are long and unmanageable with the fiberglass cast on his right hand. It is awkward work and he is sweating. Satisfied, he sits on down on the bench to await my arrival.

If this man can obliterate my suspicions, my judgment, in a single, uncomplicated, unselfish gesture, then perhaps there is reason to hope. Perhaps the world is not so lonely and fearsome. There may be others like him out there, hiding, lurking, waiting, for the precise moment you and I harden our hearts and retreat further into our small private worlds. Then, in a flash, they will act. They will hold open a heavy door while you struggle with bags of groceries. They will leave half an hour on the parking meter, or the day's paper on the counter. They will smile and say hello on a morning when the sky hangs dark and heavy and threatens to rip open with pelting rain. And this simple greeting, small though it may be, will be enough. It has to be.