The Act of Giving

Posted: October 17th, 2013

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The Act of Giving

            Charity to me means giving to the needy. I associate it with the poor, the desolate in the society and the people who are willing to give. My feelings are sad, pitiful, sympathy and appraisal for those who have the heart to give to those in need. The assertion in the title of the article is that people should not choose who they offer help. The societal norms encourage us to give whole-heartedly to everyone who lacks, but should I not question whether a person is deserving of my help, or they are simply taking advantage of my generosity. While the act of giving is encouraged, one questions who deserves to be given and who does not.

We should not offer material help to everyone who asks for it. There are people who deserve help, and there are those who just do not. Some have no means of acquiring the necessities, such as food, shelter, clothing and even medical needs. Struggle as they may, it is hard to find employment or any other means of earning a living, so that they can put food on the table. Among the reasons one could have a hard time getting, is because they lack education. Take, for example, a poor person who cannot afford to get an education or simply orphaned or neglected children. Some may have health issues that led to or need medical bills that are hard to cover. No one would blame such a person, if they around begging for help or called for charity and raising of funds. I have no issue helping such a person. The society should give whole-heartedly to such people. On the other hand, there is a person who just sits around and makes no effort to get what they need. Some are addicts as mentioned in the article or just lazy. The society should not be expected to encourage people to continue with their iniquitous behaviors and habits. If we continue giving, to everyone whether they seem deserving or not, we are contributing to making parasites of some members of the society. A person who is genuinely lacking will ask for help today, but tomorrow, they will have strived to find a way to make the best of their abilities. No person in such a state is proudly basking around waiting to receive help.

As for that ‘needy’ person who sits proudly on the streets and begs for help or constantly asks the people around him for change, he is not looking to make any changes to his state. He has no problem being where he is, because anyway he knows at the end of the day, there will come a Good Samaritan. For some, the few coins received are used in alcohol drinking. The writer of the article “Charity means you don’t pick and choose” expresses that people in the streets would look at her stupidly because of giving to a homeless person.

This is because people are smart enough to know that some people in the streets are not in need. They are just too lazy to work, to acquire whatever they might need. In this sense, charity is giving to those who require and need help. It is therefore not wrong to choose who to help and who not to help. People should be wise and know when and who to give. We might just be making the society a worse place in our acts of charity.