Most people know and understand that helping others makes you feel good. This can be volunteering for a non-profit to giving directions to someone who is lost. Sometimes your help makes a bigger difference to the person you are helping.

I recently had the opportunity to help someone who needed a ride. No, I didn’t pick up a hitchhiker. I was camping with a few of my children and, right before we were leaving to drive to an airport an hour and a half away, a nearby camper asked where we were heading. When the answer was the airport in the city their friend needed to get to, she asked if we had room to give their friend a ride to the airport because his ride had fallen through.

He seemed like a nice enough guy and we had chatted with his friends over the long weekend. The long story short is that I said yes. The result was helping someone who really needed to get to the airport.

He was heading home, but learned he is a musician and had a show that night in a different city, i.e. he needed to get home to work and earn money. It turns out he has four children, like me, his wife has a “normal” 9-5 job, and he travels the country to earn a living. That’s a hard gig.

So in exchange for helping him out, my kids and I met an interesting person. It also turned out he had good life insights. He discussed such things as setting goals and writing them down. He has his children do so too, which I think is a great idea I hope to institute with my children.

This gentleman was so appreciative for the ride. For me, it made me feel good to help someone who was in a tough spot and had income on the line.

The next time you have an opportunity to help someone in need, think about how it makes you feel and how it helps build the type of world and community you should want to live in. And in a world where karma matters, I hopefully banked a point or two.