Being Privileged

Firstly, apologies for the short hiatus since the last post, but it had been another busy week for me, as you will be able to read about in my weekly update, which should be out tomorrow.

I was walking home the other night after attending a meeting across the river. I had decided to pop into Lidl to buy some foodstuff, and so I had like a couple of boxes of cherry tomatoes on one hand, and some packets of biscuits in the other, walking in the cold, home...

My route home brought me along some big and busy roads which were full of beggars... beggars...

I have no idea what happened to me, but instantly I began to think about my life, how privileged I was to have enough of everything, friends, money, food, accommodation, brains, results, literally everything I need (note: not everything I want), and here were these people who had to beg to survive... Begging is not uncommon in Dublin, and in literally any part of the world, besides a little island republic called Singapore. There are many reasons why people beg.

In Dublin, beggars generally fall into a few categories:
1. The professional beggars- who are usually the gypsy women, carrying babies or little children. It is their way of life to beg.

2. The alcoholic/addicted beggar- who can usually be observed having a pack next to them, or a bottle. Sometimes, they can be seen smoking a stick while sitting there with a cup, or some will appear quite drunk. These are usually middle aged people

3. The homeless beggar- who are usually quite young, say in their 20-30's. Anyway, one of the reasons they beg is because they cannot find work. And why can't they find work? Because they do not have a permanent address. And so, if you don't have a permanent address, you can't work, and if you can't work you don't have money for accommodation. It's a vicious cycle. And so they resort to begging.

It is this 3rd group that distresses me. And on that particular night, most of the beggars I passed were in this group. I have a very bad attitude of not being very charitable to beggars. Anyway, in my opinion, I rather give them a meal or buy them something they need rather than to give them money, to which I have no idea what I have contributed towards. (believe me, I have seen this one beggar who, after collecting enough money, was at the counter in Tesco, buying a big bottle of Vodka, and paying for it with all the coins he collected).

So what troubled me this particular night was that I was carrying food in my hands, and I could have easily given it to them. But then again, if I gave, I would probably end up empty handed by the time I reached home.. I really wanted to help them, but I don't think I could afford to. This kind of thinking is really what I really worried about.

In an ideal world, I should be trying to help them, giving them something out of charity. But the problem with me, and I think a lot of other people is that they are charitable, but only to the extent of after having satisfied their own need. As long as I have enough, I can give what I do not need, whatever extra rather then sharing whatever I have.

Let's not talk about beggars, or begging, but in the everyday situations of our lives. How many people willingly share things with each other? I certainly haven't found that many people who do that here in my college... I think there is a word for it, it's something like altruism, but not totally that...

So yeah, another thing that got me thinking was last night when I saw a nice young lady who actually took the time off to ask one of these beggars about his problems. Isn't it nice to see that some one actually cares? Maybe I should do that too next time, instead of just walking past them...

Hopefully, people who are equally, if not more, privileged than me will do the same.