First published in The Bangsar Boy column, StarMetro on August 20, 2011

WHEN I was younger, I had this terrible habit of borrowing things from my family members. The problem was I had another bad habit – I was always losing things, theirs included.

The following story goes back to my secondary school days. After I had alighted the public bus which dropped me off, I realised that I had left a bag, which included my dad’s windbreaker, on it. In my panic, and probably to avoid a face-to-face confession later, I called my parents to let them know immediately.

What transpired after, I don’t exactly know because I was just going through my classes worrying about how I would deal with being punished later by my parents.

The details I have is from what mum told me after – she had rushed over to the major bus terminal in PJ Old Town, searched for all the buses which took my route to school and ask around if they had seen my bag.

Well, the driver did and happily returned the bag to mum.

Stories like these are sometimes hard to believe but I’d like to think that such incidents – honest people returning things to the rightful owners – are more common than we imagine.

Over dinner a few days ago, my parents and I were talking about some recent similar incidences, yet there was a sense of skepticism in the air. This was coming from people who have experienced it numerous times.

Just on Monday, I had left my iPad in a restaurant and the waiter rushed down to pass it to me. Two weeks ago, I had left my sunglasses behind somewhere and needed someone to call out to me too. Yes, it would appear that bad habits die hard.

Anyway, the conversation got me to thinking about what it is that led us to be so cynical of people that we have so little faith in humanity?

One argument we often hear is how that as the world progresses, we all become more and more absorbed in our own world and therefore, we only look after ourselves.

In the context of leaving things behind, finders keepers right? Well, wrong I hope.

I will just need to readjust my thinking to break away from such thought because I believe that people in general are honest. Plus, a lot of values that we hold on to as we grow old are inculcated since we were young.

I have this vivid memory of being in my primary school classroom discussing the appropriate action to take if we were to come across a missing wallet on the street. Surely, most of us who went through the same education system would keep to the same value, especially if it was a good one?

Granted, even I would pocket the Ringgit or two that I find lying on the street but if it was a whole wallet, I’d like to think that I would (as many others too, I’m sure) attempt to identify the owner and return it to him or her.

This happened to me before, by the way, when as a teenager, I received a random phone call at home from someone who had found my missing wallet – and returned it completely intact.

These days, we always hear each other talk about how we’re “sure” that this person or that person must have swiped some things we have left behind but if we really think about it, how can we be so sure?

Considering the fact that there are so many other things to be wary about in this world, I think it would do us good to be a little less cynical in these circumstances.

Just a couple of weeks ago, someone handed over to me a missing child at an event my colleagues and I were working at. We found the mother in the end, but I can’t imagine how horrible it would be for the mother if she had to search for her child, expecting the worst because she had so little faith in mankind.

Given the choice, I’d choose to carry on my life believing that there are many, many good people out there.

And that if I actually do lose something I left behind, it was because the person who found it just couldn’t find a way to get back in touch or hand it over.

It might be a little naïve, but hey, I’ve had so many things returned to me that it would be so ungrateful of me to continue being cynical.