Now a days, the overwhelming
difficulty of living has caused charity to become obviated from the intentions
of many people, even among relatives and friends. Proof of this reality can be
seen everywhere; and seldom will you now find people who are still willing to
help and extend assistance without expecting anything in return. That is why I
have great respects to those people who are still willing to practice this most
noble of virtues. However, I have a few minor takes that I wish to express with
regards this practice.
Primarily, I believe that the
difference between helping people through charity and pampering them with the
same is so thin that sometimes charitable persons can no longer tell the difference
whether they trudge on one territory or the other. Although some might claim
that it matters not which direction the charity follows so long as the nobility
of the act is there, I believe that it is important to delineate the difference; not for the benefit of the benefactor but of the beneficiaries.
Considering that helping is a virtue, if practiced, it is assumed that it will
bear some positive effect on the recipients, otherwise, the expressed virtue
can simply morph into a vice-like form which can further aggravate rather than
alleviate any situation.
Allow me to explain my point through
a hyphothetical yet very commonly occurring scenarios. Consider two siblings,
one of them through hard work and persistence has managed to do well in life, while
the other through mediocre efforts managed to haul himself deep into the pit of
poverty and constantly blames his bad fate for all the misfortunes he gains.
The well-to-do sibling is single while the poverty-stricken one has several
children having married early in life. Through the goodness of his heart and
pushed by his care for his nieces and nephew, the well-to-do sibling has often
provided the other sibling with all the help he can muster, to the point that
the poor sibling is almost dependent on him. Now seemingly, there is nothing
wrong with this act, if at all it is commendable, because siblings indeed need
to care and help each other. Besides, charity needs to begin at home. But what disturbs
me is the possibility that as the well-to-do sibling constantly provides for
the needs of the other, his help and charity may be bearing negative (not
positive) effects on the life-perspective of his sibling. True, his charity may
project a good image of himself, but in the long run, will it also mold good
character out of his beneficiaries? In such situations, it is easy for the soft
spot in our hearts to overcome the logic in our brain and we may forget that
poverty for all its bad publicity and reputation is the main and necessary ingredient
for building strong-willed persona which in the long run will be more
beneficial for the person than any or all the temporary aids we can give them. Too
much charity can sometimes nullify this ingredient, leaving the person weak and
without principle. That is perhaps the reason why an unknown Chinese wise man
was inspired to caution everyone regarding charity:
Give a person a fish, and you
feed them for a day. Teach a person how to fish, and you feed them for a
lifetime.
Both forms of charity are of
course good for the benefactor; but the benefits of the former are more
permanent for the beneficiary than the latter.
Another commonly extended
scenario is like this: at one point, the well-to-do sibling might decide that
he wants to send all his nieces and nephew to a private school to provide them
with good education. This according to his opinion is so the children will not
look down on him someday for being well-to-do but not providing them with good
educational opportunity. But he realizes that he cannot completely carry the
burden of all the finances of private schooling so he strikes a deal with his poor
sibling that he will take care of the tuition fee expenses so long as the poor
sibling will take care of the other needs of the children (like uniforms,
projects, supplies, etc). The well-to-do sibling is further claiming that this
is not for the benefit of his sibling but of her nieces and nephew. However, in
my perspective several questions keep on ringing:
(1) Will
the act really provide the best education for the children?
(2) Who
will enjoy the most benefit best from this situation? The children or the
parents?
(3) Will
it really alleviate the true problem? Or will it aggravate it?
In my take, the best education
that any child can have are those provided by their own parents, there is no
substitute for this. I have seen many poor children sent to public schools that
have made it much further and better than those sent on private schools simply
because the good influence of their parents are there. In this case, due to the
dependency of the poor sibling to his well-to-do sibling, we can assume that
the poor sibling has lost the capability to influence his children well. After
all, if he himself is dependent, how can he set examples for his children to be
independent? As such the solution to the problem of providing the best
education for the children does not really lie on the children but on the
parents themselves. If they cannot be molded into responsible parents, no
amount of private education will also mold their children.
And who is to enjoy the most benefit
from all this setup? Is it the children? Bear in mind that typical children
sent to private schools are mostly well cared from well to do families. If the
children of the poor sibling is mixed with these cohorts in a private school
with only their tuition fees being on stable ground, it is possible that the
scant provisions their poor parents can provide can most probably cause them to
feel (initially envy then) shame than pride on being part of that school,
seeing how well cared other children are compared to them (sometimes it can
also have a positive effect but very rarely). The parents on the other hand can
only feel pride in claiming that all their children are studying in private
schools as afforded by their well-to-do uncle not understanding that there is
really no pride in stating such claims.
In the end, the question that
really needs attention is whether or not the charity extended by the well-to-do
sibling will provide opportunities to alleviate the problem, only time of
course will tell. There are a lot of factors that needs to be considered and a
lot of commitments to be held. Primarily hinging on how far the well-to-do
uncle will hold on to his charitable nature.
But on a more pragmatic sense since
the true source of the problem lies in the lack of responsibility on the part
of the parents. In my opinion, the charity will most probably aggravate the
situation. This because the benefactor did not help, he pampered. Instead of
focusing on improving the character of the parents, he dwelled on substituting
their shortcomings. True, the children may not look down on him for being a bad
uncle but what’s to stop them now from thinking bad of their parents? And which
is better, the children thinking bad of other people or of their own parents?
Remember, it is not important whether the parents are poor or not, what matters
is whether they are responsible.
Indeed charity is a double edged
sword and one must be very careful in wielding it. In such scenario, my respect
for the benefactor is always and remains intact but prudence dictates me to
remind that although charity may look at the need and not the cause, nothing
good ever came-out out of too much of anything; including charity. Just my
two-cents worth.
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