Overhead today

I was listening in on a conversation between some people on the radio while driving. The focus of the discussion was regarding the nation's homeless and the children that are in poverty.

This stirs great interest in me namely because I grew up extremely poor and always enjoy some educated, private-schooled, never-had-to-worry-where-the-next-meal-was-coming-from guy (or gal) talk about poverty. They obviously have been reading too many fiction novels, because there is nothing -- nothing -- glamorous about poverty.

There seems to be a sparkle in their eye when they refer to children and adults who exist in poverty. They seem to be like an archeologists on a dig, finding a new form of human. What really challenges me is that some of this ilk seem like it is an inalienable right that every person be given an education, be given a computer, be given benefits with their job. We live in an entitlement world that knows little of what it takes to move from poor to not so poor to managing. And rich, educated folks like I heard today don't make it any easier.

I wish that those who fantasize with their saviour-complex would ask some good questions. Like, "why?", for starters. Why? Why do people end up homeless, with no money? I have seen poverty from the inside and I can tell you, some people are as strategic as being poor -- and staying poor --- as those who are planning with their fat retirement accounts. There is a certain adrenaline rush to cutting coupons and downsizing. Like a big game in which they win when they spend less, they push and jolt others around for their sense of entitlement.

I know that there are people -- children -- that are truly innocent in the sense that they are born into poverty...I was one. But being born into a situation does not mean one has to stay there. Is it difficult to change that paradigm? Absolutely. Is it easy? Not on your life. It takes work and focus and dedication and then more work. And it takes the hardest work of all, that in reliance on a power greater than oneself to make changes in thinking and behaviour. Change is hard, it takes work and it takes grit. And it is honorable to allow someone to struggle in that process so that the struggle becomes "theirs" so that when they achieve it, it is their own and not some thin hand me down mentality.

For some, work has become a four-letter word. We believe that things should be handed to us and it should cause us no discomfort, no effort, no real investment of ourselves. The thing is, I really believe that unless something is worked for it doesn't mean squash and won't be worthwhile to anyone, least of all the one who has been "given". I believe that these kinds of gifts are much more for those that are givers, than those that are the benficiaries. It is a kind of salve on our conscious to think that we've done "something" for someone.

Giving someone a hand out is not the answer. Giving someone an opportunity to work -- and sometimes work hard -- is more spiritual and beneficial than an easy ride.