Most people are too scared to look at poverty in the face. Most people do not even admit this, let alone think about what it is inside them, that makes them look away. We are too uncomfortable with the thought of confrontation, even if it is only within in ourselves, that perhaps we prefer to stay ‘ignorant’, to have the luxury of not facing terrible things only because they are not happening to us, even though they are all around us. Don’t get me wrong, we all want to do something to help, something to make a difference to the world, but we cannot do this until we have confronted the very issue we want to change.
I had always thought that I was the type of who wanted to help people, who was passionate about making a difference in the world. Ethnic conflicts, poverty, and environmental issues – I wanted to tackle them all. In coming to India, I thought that maybe I could do something about the poverty that was so widespread in the country.
But actually when it came down to it I found that I couldn’t even look poverty in the face. I could not look at it because I could not confront the ‘discomfort’ it caused me. I notice while traveling in India that I subconsciously tried to ‘ignore’ the poverty that was in front of me. Beggars came up to us on the streets and I looked away feeling a stinging pain my heart, a mixture of guilt and the feeling that I ‘should’ give them money as I do actually have more than them. Street children tugged insistently on our sleeves and I just wanted them to go away and stop annoying us. I was too scared to confront what poverty did to me inside that I wallowed in the ‘luxury’ of ignorance and the ability to brush away the discomfort this caused me. On another I level, I also began to ‘intellectualize’ poverty. I am the university student. I study development issues at university. I ‘know’ what to do about them. I ‘know’ about poverty. I even come up with theories in my head about why we should not do ‘something’ when we saw street beggars. At that time the only ‘something’ I knew was to give them money. And so deep down I avoided looking at poverty in the face. I hid behind the convenient mask of ‘ignorance’ to avoid the discomfort of my confrontation about poverty.
But one day something changed, planting seeds for a new and altered perspective on this issue. It was such a small insignificant event, yet it possibly triggered something deep and profound within me. We were sitting at a juice bar on the street, when a ragged little beggar girl holding a baby came up to us. She was just like the many street kids we had seen during our travels in India. Once again I subconsciously looked away, but then turned around when Claire suggested we buy her a drink. In my subconscious avoidance to face poverty I once again made excuses – ‘we shouldn’t do something’ as the shop keeper will get annoyed at us for encouraging her to come near the shop. Ashamedly this was my first reaction. Yet when Claire nudged me, I found myself ordering another glass of juice and giving it to the girl. She smiled a beautiful smile and sat down, pouring half the juice in another glass and feeding it to the baby. This time I really looked at her. And she was such a beautiful little girl.
Immediately after, two other girls came, hands held out as well. My second reaction, was once again to fight inner discomfort that bubbling up inside me, and the thought that ‘now we would have to buy juice for everyone.’ Yet we didn’t and instead of buying more juice we shared what we had left with the new girls. At first I thought they were perhaps slightly disgusted at being given a half glass of juice from a stranger, but then they soon smiled and shrugged, taking the juice and sipping it together.
And that’s when it hit me! Why does it have to be so hard to show a simple act of kindness!!! Why could we not share willingly what we have, without intellectualizing everything and making excuses for why we couldn’t be kind? They are human too and that makes them our equals, not people who are ‘inferior’ to us in some way. Why we are too busy worrying about the discomfort this causes us, the ‘privileged’ ones when they are the ones in the real plight.
This whole incident made me realize how easy it is to forget that kindness, happiness and compassion are simple things that everyone can do. Ignoring poverty is an excuse, a comfort we should not have when people are faced with such terrible plights. Why should we be allowed the luxury of ignorance? I also realized that through university I am learning about issues like poverty in only one particular way. And it is actually not the only way. We may learn how to do development projects, how to find the reasons for poverty and ways to overcome them. But before all that we need to remember the basics. We are all human beings and all equal to each other. Compassion and kindness are universal and we must not forget this in the face of poverty.
We can make a difference in the face of poverty even if is as simple as sharing a class of juice! It is the spirit of giving that counts. You may not have enough money, or even food to hand out, but you can give something which will never run out and that is compassion and kindness. If you give in shame, guilt or annoyance, then you are taking something from them. You take away their dignity as human beings. Giving in the true spirit of giving, no matter how small, is a fundamental thing as it acknowledges people as human beings, not as invisible beggars.
This is something so simple we do not need to get a university degree to do!
That is not to say that just having compassion will ‘solve’ all the worlds terrible situations but it is a start. By first accepting that poverty is ‘uncomfortable’ to face, we can begin to let go of the focus on ‘ourselves’ and our own inner discomfort. This frees us up to feel true compassion for others. Only when we have compassion for others and respect for them as fellow human beings can we take a real step to make a physical difference to the situation of poverty in the world.
Even though I have had this profound realization about myself and in facing poverty, I am not perfect. In fact the very next time I walked past some beggars, I cringed. But now I know this is only a reaction, a challenge to overcome, instead of a hidden trigger which turns my face away. I say not that I ‘know’ poverty, but I say that my eyes have been opened to what it takes to look at poverty in the face.
