After presenting my honors thesis at the Government Student Research Conference, at the private university where my parents pay for me to receive an education in one of the most expensive and progressive states in the U.S., I was distracted by thoughts of lunch; did I want to walk all the way to the Whole Foods on Cambridge Street for overpriced sushi, or should I go to Quincy Market for a bowl of chowder instead? Frankly, this was my biggest dilemma of my day.

Then, as I was waiting for the crosswalk light to signal my turn to cross, I heard shouting from behind. At first, I wasn't going to turn around, because I'm a regular in Boston and therefore a regular witness to street brawls, police altercations and overall revelry that comes with the territory of Boston. But for some reason, my gut told me to turn around anyway. And what I saw has stuck with me since then.

The manager, or owner or store worker, who knows, of the 7/11 right there at the intersection in front of the Suffolk Law School, was shouting at a group of three, very obviously, homeless men. One was skinnier than is healthy for a full grown man his age, and all his worldly possessions were in a ripped backpack on his back, and his clothes were in tatters. A second man was shorter, and his clothes were so ill-fitting that the cuffs of his pants completely covered his feet by a good few inches, and his sleeves covered his hands in much the same fashion. The third, the one that made my heart strings twinge the most, was a man in a wheelchair, with no legs and half of one arm gone, a trash bag attached to the back of his chair, and a wheel patched with duct tape and a stick as a replacement spoke.

The manager, or whoever he was, was screaming at this trio to leave the front of his store, that they could "never stop there again" and block his doorway, waiting for scraps or waiting to beg for money or food. He screamed, spittle flying from his mouth to spray his hapless victims, that they were a nuisance, a burden, and to find somewhere else to waste space. The three men, the human beings, the three lives that were once so different than what they have become now, only nodded their heads meekly and went on their ways, all three looking down and averting the gaze from the crowd that shot them looks ranging from disgust to pity.

And then the skinny man, with a grizzle beard and tattered shirt, looked up and our eyes met. In his eyes, I didn't see a nuisance; I didn't see a waste of space, or a degenerate, feeding on the welfare of society. I saw a man. I saw a person, who was once worth something to someone. I saw a man who had a mother, and a father once, who was a baby once, held in the arms of someone who must have felt something for him. I saw a man who was once a child, who once went to school like I did, who had friends like I did, who must have had dreams and aspirations of a life so far removed from the one he has been thrust into by a cruel and unforgiving world.

But most importantly, I saw a human being, who had just been treated like a mangy dog. And I'll never forget what I saw.

Why is it so easy for people like that 7/11 manager to treat fellow human beings worse than dirt? Make them feel lower than a bug? Act as if they are worth less than they are?

I don't know the backstory here; I don't know the history. Perhaps these three men have been loitering in this storefront for years, dissuading customers from entering, costing the man valuable business. Maybe they're drug addicts, who do illegal drugs on the premises and put the store's credibility in danger.

But even if they were all of these things, and not interested in changing or getting help; even if they were satisfied with a life on welfare and sleeping in park, you cannot deny that these men are men. These men are human beings. And these human beings are worth something, no matter what the history.

I've lived in Massachusetts more than half of my life; I've gone to school in Boston for four years, and like other city dwellers, I have become all but numb to the rampant homelessness present in the city. I have learned to look through the stragglers standing outside North Station with signs begging for charity and compassion. I have become deaf to the sounds of brawls between homeless men outside Walgreens and CVS, fighting over last night's scraps from the dumpster. I no longer see the men and women sleeping in the dirt on the Commons alongside studying university students and mothers with their children playing by the Duck Pond.

But every so often, an incident like this occurs, and my eyes lock with a victim of this rampant disease of homelessness, and all those emotions, all those feelings I'm forced to stuff inside for fear of my heart shattering to pieces, come barreling through the broken floodgates, and I feel my heart ache and lurch and burn for the men and women who have fallen on such hard times that their only option is to loiter outside a 7/11 on Tremont Street because life has failed them so utterly that they have nothing better to do.

After my gaze locked with the homeless man, and after he looked away, refusing to meet my eye, I went on my way. I decided to trek to the Whole Foods for sushi, and I returned to eat lunch in my university's library, getting ahead on some assignments while waiting for my last class to start. My life went on; nothing has changed for me today. But now, I find it a little harder to numb myself to the suffering of the homeless. I find myself unable to avert my gaze quick enough from beggars, and I can hear the sounds of poverty again. I'm sure if I waited a few weeks, my heart would harden once again, and I could go back to normal. But I find that I don't want to live that way, not anymore.

I'd rather suffer the discomfort of witnessing the struggle of the homeless. I want to burn their images onto the backs of my eyelids, so that they are all I see when I sleep at night. I want to remember their faces, their voices, their stories, so that once day, when I am no longer just a student agonizing over finals and her honors thesis, I can meet their gazes with more than just apology in mine. I can meet them with determination, so that I can help them in a more meaningful way than just being a silent witness to their struggle.