Your kindness buys dignity for you - not for the recipient
2018 08 27 | journal
Today a friend is going to help me with something I can't do alone. As a thank-you, I will be taking said friend out for a meal after. The only reason I am able to do this is because I now make a wage that accommodates such things. Prior, I was lucky if I could take someone out for a coffee - or anything at all - as a thank-you for a favour.
I realise that this may seem trivial, superficial, or mundane, but...
... people need self-determination. In this culture, personal control comes out of having enough money to have that control. Without money, you are dependant on "the kindness of strangers", charity, hand-outs, desperation moves, or nothing at all. Our ability to move within this culture, is dependant on money. If you have no money, you can't move. Or, if you can, it's glacial, and fairly lateral. I realise that you think you are kind by donating to food banks, or giving without expectation of return - and you are kind for doing so, and keep doing it; but your kindness buys dignity for you - not for the recipient. Our culture orients itself on purchasing power; and I can tell you from personal experience, that when you spend your entire life needing help, it's finally nice to be in a place where you don't need it, or need so much of it, any longer; a place where you can determine your own path yourself.
Let me put it more simply.
There is a great deal of embarrassment and shame involved in being so broke that you have to borrow money to buy feminine hygiene products. Stop perpetrating a cultural condition that allows things like that to happen.