Discussions.

The other day while we were all sitting in Steve’s office having coffee, we were discussing the story in the news about a guy who got caught on camera taking out a hand gun and shooting several people. It wasn’t as if it happened late at night… I think it might have actually taken place early in the evening. It truly is sad to hear people getting shot, stabbed, mugged and abused in the news on such a regular basis. It almost feels as if our headlines revolve on people getting hurt or killed. It’s all we hear nowadays. It really is depressing that the world we live in has become such an unsafe place and that people have started to become desensitized to crime. Since when is taking the life of another human being an acceptable and automatic solution to a disagreement between individuals? Ganun na lang ba? If you do something I don’t like, do I just take a gun a shoot you and get it over with? Where did the morals of our society go?

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At work one morning, while sipping our coffees and eating our bagels, we started talking about people begging for money on the streets. How there’s always a guy begging for money so he can go home or go to a certain place, a guy begging for money for food and another begging for money for medicine or milk or diapers for a baby. I’m sure most of you if not all, have given money at some point. I know I have. The sad thing is, I’m not always so sure they are spending/using the money for the right reasons. The guy who claims he needs money to buy a bus ticket home is still there… in that same spot in the mall entrance, still begging for money to go home several years after I’ve given him some money. I don’t know what to think… was he lying about needing the money to go home and I was just an idiot who fell for it? Did something else happen and he ended up using the money for that? In all these years that have gone by, does he still not have enough money to buy that bus ticket home?

A co-worker was telling me that he once gave some change to a guy who cleaned his windshield on the highway and the guy ended up throwing the change back at him. I guess he wanted more… but for someone who is needy, you’d think he’d at least be appreciative. I’ve also heard about a woman carrying her baby and asking for money outside the grocery store saying she needed to buy milk or diapers for her baby. But when she was given the diapers/milk, she asked if she could have the receipt as well. What for? One can’t help but think that she will prolly go into the store, return the items and get the money back. If she needed the said items for the baby, why then does she need to return them for the money?

I like giving alms but it’s discouraging when you encounter people who take advantage of you. Tinutulungan na nga, nangaabuso pa. Nakakainis diba? I’m not saying all of them are just out to get you. I think that there are those who really are needy and will put the money you give them to good use. I feel bad because those that abuse the goodness of others ruin it for those who are genuinely in need. Now people are more wary and hesitant in helping. People are less inclined to be compassionate because every one is worried they will be taken advantage of in one way or another.

At the same time I also can’t help but think that maybe those that take advantage and who lie feel compelled to do so because maybe even when they ask nicely, people are just so uncompassionate and maybe they feel the need to come up with ways to get people to give.

I just wish people would strive to be better persons.