Remember when we were kids and sometimes responded to a slight–real or imagined–by vollying back, “It takes one to know one?”
I confess it never occurred to me that the retort was anything more than a rhetorical attempt to even a score and salve hurt feelings.
Until today.
Gauthier is making some changes in people’s lives, offering haircuts coupled with a positive philosophy. He posted this photo on his Facebook page last year, writing, ‘Give away love, light and grace like you’re made from it.’ (Straightedgebarber/Facebook)
Turns out, “It takes one to know one” can be a booster rocket propelling us up a path of generosity.
Came to me following a conversation I had with a 44-year-old man in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan named Jason Gauthier.
When Gauthier is not spending quality time with his 16-year-old son, he cuts hair.
Gauthier moved to Moose Jaw to be with his son and things in that department are working out just fine. (City of Moose Jaw)
His clients?
A whole bunch of them are persons who are homeless, a condition Gauthier is well acquainted with.
Before he became a barber, Gauthier was a lot of things: addict, convict, homeless person.
At the moment, he’s a mensch.
Gauthier says he’s repaying a kindness given to him 12 years ago by a woman he had never met. (YouTube)
I asked him–after all the misdirected runs through the jungle when he was younger–how he wound up behind a barber’s chair, helping homeless persons.
(Hint: turns out that generosity is contageous and it really does take one to know one.)
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