A Paid Fare and the Unpaid Gratitude

I boarded a public transport yesterday on my way to the bank for some transactions. As I entered , I looked at my back and saw many school children (teenagers) going to their various homes in the bus.
Some were lapping each other to save the cost of transportation; it's a common practice among school children over here.

While some drivers don't allow lapping, some kindly allow the school children to lap themselves as much as they can just to assist them.

Some drivers too reduce their cost of transportations and whenever I see some of these rare drivers showing kindness to these school children, it gladens my heart.We kept moving, and then a young man beside me said to the driver, "Please calculate the cost of transportation for all these school children inside this vehicle so he can pay for all of them." Wow, immediately when I heard that, I was so happy, and then I said to the man, "God bless you, sir, for being so kind to these school children. Your act of kindness will be rewarded by God," and the man smiled back at me and said, "Amen."

---

Shortly, we reached the next bus stop and half of the school children dropped from the vehicle , they brought out money to pay to the driver and the driver said to then, don't worry, this young man seated here has paid for all of you people

---

I was expecting to see excited and grateful students , but what I saw was the opposite . These students just said okay, turned back, and went away. Wow, just wow. The driver was shocked, so as I was , and he said, children of nowadays, ordinary thank you , you can't say for this act of kindness? The kind hearted man who did the payment was only smiling as the driver expressed his displeasure on the part of those students and I said to him once again, sir is God that will reward you and not human okay?, it's unfortunate that some people lack the expression of gratitude nowadays

---

I wouldn't blame this action by the schoolchildren on the part of their parents, no! It's possible they were taught at home, but they choose to behave however they like. Life is a choice after all , people grow to choose a particular lifestyle they seem suitable , and for some People, it's simply lack of manners. For some, it's actually their parent's fault; some parents ignore the little things that matter, which are morals, whereas they matter in raising a responsible child.

It takes nothing away from us to express gratitude over a kind gesture and I hope we keep reminding our growing kids and teenagers about this so it can become part of them.

---

Even a kobo given to you for free deserves a thank you. You must not wait until you receive millions of naira or dollars from people before appreciating kindness.

All images were generated by Meta AI

Thanks for reading...