I am low on money these days and my life is hell for it. I have to do with substandard everything in my life I recently had an incident where an elderly woman asked me for money while roaming the street with her family begging for money. I had no money to spare, but had I had any, I wouldn’t have given a penny to her (Life is tough, I can’t give away money I didn’t earn)
But, she later said something which melted my heart, “Majboori hai beta!” (Hindi) “We don’t want to do this, but we have to do it son” (now add some emotional value to it), I didn’t know what to do, I was on my cycle and I could feel their eyes on me as I passed them and I just peddled faster with teary eyes.
I didn’t know how to deal with that. i.e., I don’t have enough money for medical necessities or to improve the standard of living of my own life, but I was being asked to spare change by a poor family that was demonstrably in a worse spot than me.
I was always taught that if you give beggars money, they will spend it all on alcohol (not blaming them), and given the number of beggars who have come to be smelling like alcohol and death with wobbly balance, it has been a rule not to provide them with money. Also, let’s not forget, if you’re really poor (homeless and have nothing to lose) and you are really desperate, you are often dangerous i.e., not someone around whom your kids can roam, again, not blaming them. But… I don’t know what is right or wrong in this situation!
How do you deal with external problems you can’t solve around you? What is the moral thing to do here?
edit: This kinda reminds of a story about Jesus where a prince once came to him and told him that he isn’t at peace with himself no matter what he does, and Jesus told him that to get peace he must give away everything to the poor and follow Jesus around and the prince refused (something along those lines).
I know what the most moral thing might be in this case, but even if you tell me that I should give money to those who live in abject poverty, I probably won’t do it as often as I should.
Give what you can afford. That varies from person to person, and timeframe, but if you truly have nothing to give, then you have nothing to give without impacting your own existance. Plus if you’re a person living off of people’s kindness and get mad when people have nothing, then they aren’t the problem
but if you truly have nothing to give, then you have nothing to give without impacting your own existance.
But I say to myself, if I ever give a little, it’s not gonna have much material impact on their life. i.e., I am not easing their misery for more than an hour! Also, there are many of them, how will I choose whom to give and whom not to? edit: But it’s gonna take away stuff from me, I don’t spend a rupee when I don’t have to.
Is give when you feel like it and when you can (I think you would say yes to this) a good idea?
Easing someone’s misery for an hour IS EASING SOMEONE’S MISERY.
And maybe the physical thing you provide to that person may only last for an hour, but the memory of something a kind person did for them will (hopefully) persist as well
And maybe the physical thing you provide to that person may only last for an hour, but the memory of something a kind person did for them will (hopefully) persist as well
I don’t know if you have been in India but I have. Begging has become a profession there. So most likely they won’t recognize individual donors. Also what OP mentioned is a real problem. Easily you’ll meet more than 20 homeless people at once around you in any big railway station.
From what I understand, shitty politics and rising inequality is the reason behind this.
I give. But also I talk, I listen, I don’t toss a coin and ignore.
I genuinely take the time to talk to someone. If they seem nice, safe, and don’t strike me as being “impulsively dangerous”, I might invite them to share a meal with me, or to a café.
Obviously I can’t do this for everyone, but when I’m low on money like you, I might literally just invite someone to my home and make them a piece of toast, ask them what their day to day is like, if it sounds like they need an old blanket, give them one if I’ve got a spare.
Vote for politicians who support UBI.
I’m not sure how someone could live in a big city without learning to just walk past beggars without making eye contact. I know I sound like a terrible person when I say that explicitly, but it’s what almost everyone actually does. Most other people just don’t want to admit it (to others, and maybe to themselves).
That’s not true in Seattle at all for homeless or down and out. In my experience, it’s only for people who are acting erratic or sketch. We have a newspaper (Real Change) that people sell that makes it easy too. I just give them money and don’t take a paper because I can read it online if I want.
We have a newspaper (Real Change)
of all things you say, that’s the most surprising. Local news papers are becoming a thing of the past for some reason. Next time maybe buy that newspaper, I mean, Local news papers, the remaining ones, are on life support.
I pay for it, I just read it online. It’s written by the people selling and talks about their lives and issues. It’s pretty great.
My father once gave a guy a bill (currency) that surprised me and I asked if the drugs / alcohol possibility bothered him. He told me that if the guy humbles himself so much as to ask then he clearly needs it and that if he needs a bottle to get through the night then who was my dad to judge. It had a pretty profound effect on me.
Don’t beat yourself up if you can’t afford to donate. I’ve gone dumpster diving for food and picked fruit from trees and bushes under cover of night. I couldn’t donate a penny in those times because I was counting cents to buy small bits of food. Sometimes you just can’t take on more responsibility.
Now that I have a lot of comfort, I try to give as much as I reasonably think I can because I believe that if I’m able then I should. For instance, I will never turn down a request to buy someone a meal and I hand out cash in larger denominations than I think people expect depending on the circumstances I observe. But I still don’t give money to just anyone. If someone seems sleazy or like they’re trying to con me (it’s subjective), I’ll decline. And again, I don’t feel bad about it when intuition tells me that I should decline because I genuinely want good things for people and I know that about myself; in other words, I trust myself not to be a dick.
One other item: I once bought a woman a sandwich even though she kinda had an entitlement attitude. I got asked for money by a guy a block up the street and declined. He was rude to me as a result. I yelled fuck you at him because what he said to me deserved it. He had no way of knowing that I’d just given $20 to a stranger, but that didn’t make it acceptable for him to say what he said and I feel no regret about giving him a piece of my mind in response.
That you’re thinking about enough to ask strangers on the internet suggests that you have a good moral compass. Just try to pass along some help to others when you’re better situated in the future. It’ll be fine.
