Think of it as Yoga for the brain, we are going to stretch a bit.
COMPASSION IS A HELPING HAND, NOT A LIFETIME HANDOUT
Helping someone stand is compassion. Keeping someone on their knees so they'll always need your hand is something else entirely. That is difference between helping people stand on their own two feet and teaching them to live on somebody else's. -- YNOT!
There is a rather inconvenient truth about civilization that politicians, particularly those who have never had to worry about making payroll, seem determined to avoid.
If nobody works, everybody starves. It’s that simple.
You can write a thousand-page economic manifesto, hold a conference at Harvard, invent seventeen new government agencies, and hire an army of professors to explain why I’m wrong.
But at the end of the day, somebody still has to grow the potatoes.
Somebody has to harvest them, transport them, cook them, and clean the dishes afterward.
And if everybody decides that somebody else ought to do it, we’re all going to have a wonderful philosophical discussion about equality while starving to death.
The problem isn’t capitalism. The problem isn’t socialism. The problem is arithmetic.
If ten people live in a house and only two work, those two are supporting eight.
Now, if some of those eight are children, elderly, seriously ill, or genuinely unable to work, that’s called responsibility, family, and compassion.
But if the other six are perfectly capable adults who simply prefer watching television while somebody else pays the electric bill, that’s called something else.
And I suspect you know precisely what. Try that arrangement in your own household.
Imagine your grown son announces that he has decided working is an oppressive capitalist invention. He intends to remain in his bedroom, eat your groceries, use your electricity, drive your car, and pursue his lifelong ambition of doing absolutely nothing.
And naturally, he expects you to keep paying for everything.
How long before you introduce him to the magnificent economic institution known as GET A JOB?
Or suppose your perfectly healthy husband decides that employment interferes with his personal fulfillment and that you should work while he spends his afternoons contemplating the injustice of having to contribute.
Would you call that equality?
Would you call that fairness?
Or would you call a divorce lawyer?
Funny how economic theories become remarkably less attractive when you’re the one paying the bills.
And yet, when we move the same arrangement from the family kitchen to Washington, suddenly people insist that asking an able-bodied adult to contribute is some terrible act of cruelty.
Nonsense.
A society cannot consume what nobody produces. And a government cannot distribute what somebody hasn’t first earned or created.
Now, before somebody starts screaming that I hate poor people, let me explain something.
I believe in helping people. I believe in helping the sick, the elderly, the disabled, the unfortunate, and those who have fallen on hard times.
Life has a peculiar habit of knocking perfectly decent people flat on their backs.
And when that happens, civilized people should offer a hand.
But there’s an enormous difference between helping somebody get back on their feet and convincing them they never need to stand again.
Compassion should be a ladder, not a permanent address.
And that brings me to a true story.
THE LADY AT THE BANK
Many years ago, I knew a woman, Mireye, who worked as a clerk at my bank.
I had known her for years. She was one of those familiar faces you see regularly, exchange pleasantries with, and gradually come to know as more than just somebody behind a counter.
One day, I walked into the bank and noticed she was crying. I asked her what was wrong.
She told me she had cancer.
Now, cancer is a terrible word. It can turn an ordinary Tuesday into the worst day of somebody’s life.
We talked for a while, and something struck me about that conversation.
Although she was frightened about her own health, what worried her most wasn’t herself.
It was her son.
Her son had a significant disability. He had difficulty learning and doing things many of us take for granted.
He depended heavily on his mother. She was a single mom, and she was terrified of what would happen to him if she wasn’t around anymore.
But she also told me something encouraging. Her son was making progress.
He had gotten a job at Publix.
Think about that for a moment.
Here was a young man who faced obstacles that would make many ordinary tasks considerably more difficult.
Yet he was working. He was learning. He was earning his own money.
He was becoming more independent. And his mother, even while fighting cancer, was proud of him.
Over the following years, whenever I visited the bank, I would ask how she was doing.
And I would always ask about her son. One day she told me he had a girlfriend.
That was wonderful news.
His girlfriend also had a disability. They understood each other and were building a relationship.
Eventually, they got married. Imagine how his mother must have felt.
The son she once feared might never be able to manage life without her was now a husband.
He had somebody to love and somebody who loved him.
Then, on another visit, she shared even happier news.
She was going to be a grandmother. She was absolutely delighted.
But she also had another worry. Would the baby have the same developmental difficulties as its parents?
When the baby was born, those fears were relieved. The child was healthy and developing normally. She was overjoyed.
Her son had a wife. A family. A job. A future. And now she had a grandchild.
Life had given that woman some terrible burdens, but it had also allowed her to witness something extraordinary.
Her son was becoming the man she had hoped he could become.
About a year later, as visited the bank, as usual, I went looking for her, but she wasn’t there.
When I asked about her, they told me she had passed away.
I went to her funeral.
And there I met her son, his wife, and their beautiful child.
I learned that both he and his wife had jobs. They had their own apartment. They were raising their child. Neither could drive, so they used the bus to get around.
Think about that.
Two people who had been born with serious disadvantages were doing something that many people without those disadvantages take for granted.
They were building a life. Not a perfect life. Not an easy life. But their own life.
They worked. They paid bills. They took public transportation. They cared for their child.
They had responsibilities, and they accepted them.
And perhaps the most important thing of all was that when his mother died, her son had something she had spent years hoping he would achieve.
A measure of independence. That woman didn’t merely raise a child.
She helped prepare a man to survive without her. And that, my friends, is one of the greatest gifts a parent can give.
THE LESSON WE KEEP REFUSING TO LEARN
Now, I am not suggesting that every person with a disability can work, live independently, or raise a family.
Of course not. Disabilities vary enormously. Some people require lifelong care, and those people deserve our compassion, protection, and support.
Nor am I suggesting that everyone struggling financially is lazy.
Plenty of people work their fingers to the bone and still struggle to pay rent, buy groceries, or provide for their children.
That is a real problem, too. But what bothers me is the increasingly fashionable idea that expecting people who can contribute to society to actually contribute is somehow cruel.
What a ridiculous proposition. We should be teaching people how to become independent.
We should be providing education, vocational training, apprenticeships, rehabilitation, and opportunities to develop useful skills.
We should help people find work that matches their abilities.
We should remove obstacles that prevent people from working.
And we should make sure that taking a job doesn’t automatically punish someone by stripping away essential support before they can survive without it.
The objective should be independence whenever possible, not dependency whenever convenient.
Because a person who earns a living gains something far more valuable than a paycheck.
They gain confidence. They gain purpose. They gain choices. They gain the dignity of knowing they can contribute something to the world.
And, perhaps most importantly, they gain a greater measure of control over their own future.
That young man at Publix wasn’t simply stocking shelves or bagging groceries.
He was building a foundation for the day his mother would no longer be there to protect him.
Every paycheck represented another step toward independence.
Every bus ride to work was another small victory.
Every responsibility he accepted was another reason his mother could sleep a little easier.
And when she finally passed away, those victories mattered.
THE GREAT POLITICAL SCAM
Which brings me to politicians.
Especially those Democrats who seem to believe that the answer to every social problem is another government program, another subsidy, and another promise that somebody else will pay for it.
Now, before the political warriors get their pitchforks out, I’m well aware that millions of Democrats work hard, pay taxes, raise families, and support themselves.
This isn’t about the ordinary Democrat who gets up at six in the morning and goes to work. It’s about a political philosophy that too often mistakes government dependency for compassion.
And Republicans aren’t immune to that disease either. Washington has never lacked people willing to spend money that doesn’t belong to them.
But the question remains:
Are we trying to eliminate poverty, or are we simply trying to make poverty more comfortable and permanent?
Because those are two very different objectives.
A government program that helps somebody acquire skills, find employment, and become financially independent can be a marvelous investment.
A program that makes remaining dependent more attractive than becoming independent deserves serious reconsideration.
And politicians who promise benefits without discussing how those benefits are produced are selling something suspiciously similar to a perpetual-motion machine.
Everybody gets something. Nobody has to pay. And somehow the treasury never runs dry.
Wonderful!
Unfortunately, arithmetic has never been particularly impressed by campaign promises.
WHAT ARE WE TEACHING OUR CHILDREN?
If you have children, ask yourself something.
Do you want them to grow up believing the world owes them a living?
Do you want them waiting for a politician to solve their problems?
Do you want their future determined by the generosity of strangers, the decisions of bureaucrats, and the outcome of the next election?
Or do you want them equipped with the knowledge, skills, confidence, and character necessary to make their own way through life?
I know which I would choose. The greatest inheritance you can leave your children isn’t necessarily money, land, or property.
It’s the ability to survive when you’re no longer there to help them.
That woman at the bank understood something that a surprising number of politicians apparently do not.
She knew her son needed help. But she also knew that helping him meant preparing him to live without her. She wasn’t trying to make him dependent forever.
She was trying to make him independent enough to have a future. And she succeeded.
MY FINAL THOUGHT
I often think about her, what a cruel world.
About her fear when she learned she had cancer.
About the son she worried would never be able to live without her.
About the girlfriend who became his wife.
About the grandchild she was fortunate enough to hold.
And about that little family I met at her funeral.
Two adults with disabilities, jobs, an apartment, a child, and a bus schedule.
No grand political theory. No economic manifesto. No promise of a government-sponsored paradise.
Just two people making the best of the lives they had been given.
And every time I remember them, I find myself asking a rather uncomfortable question:
If two people facing such significant disadvantages could work toward independence, why are some politicians so determined to convince able-bodied adults that independence is an unreasonable expectation?
Why do we spend so much time discussing what people are entitled to receive and so little discussing what they are capable of achieving?
Why do we confuse encouraging responsibility with punishing poverty?
And why have we allowed politicians to suggest that the highest expression of compassion is a lifetime of dependency?
The poor deserve opportunity. The disabled deserve support. The struggling deserve a helping hand. The hardworking deserve a fair chance to get ahead.
And the genuinely helpless deserve protection.
But the able-bodied adult who has a real opportunity to work, access to the tools needed to succeed, and simply refuses to make any effort?
Well, my friends, perhaps we ought to stop wrapping every instance of irresponsibility in a grand philosophical argument.
Sometimes there isn’t a complicated economic explanation.
Sometimes there isn’t an oppressive system to blame.
Sometimes a person just doesn’t want to get off the damn couch.
And sometimes, yes, they’re just fucking lazy.
But here is the final irony:
A politician who teaches you that you cannot survive without government may call himself your champion. A person who teaches you how to survive without depending on him is the one who has actually helped set you free.
And somewhere in that distinction lies the difference between genuine compassion and political convenience.
That lady at the bank understood it. Her son lived it. I only wish more of Washington could learn it.
