Maybe I read too many comics when I was little.
I have a desire to help people with my life. In my romantic moments, I try to convince myself and others that this is what I really do in my sales role -- I help people to get the training they need. Just like when I used to work ordering replacement parts for broken-down buses: I told myself I was helping save the planet with public transport, and my role was vital to getting these vehicles back on the road. I never really manage to convince myself of these things.
So what, really, is helping people? It's just too vague.
Are we talking about charity? Medicine? Law enforcement? Deworming orphans in Rwanda? Someone a few years ago suggested I join the Peace Corps, but it's not open to non-US citizens, and even then what would someone like me do afterwards? I have even tried to join the military at one point, even if that was less for noble "I want to help people" reasons and more for selfish ones. But even wanting to help people is selfish, as I once wrote in a blog post called Why I Hate Superman, because it's about satisfying me.
When I was hiking the Inca trail in Peru I had an idea.
I would set up an adventure sport company that was dedicated to improving the lives of people in countries where it operated. I was inspired in the town of Agua Calientes which seemed so dishevelled and broken down, and contrasting so starkly with a grand, expensive hotel for the rich tourists who wanted to visit Machu Picchu. I thought to myself why couldn't some of that money go to the community? Who knows, maybe it did -- maybe large sums was funding education and medical care.
But what I conceived was that there are amazing, beautiful places around the world that are also suited to activities like mountain biking, all-terrain boarding, snowboarding, paragliding -- but also situated in deprived places. So what if people came and they had their fun and then their money didn't go into making anyone richer, but instead was invested into schools and hospitals and water systems. Apparently it's all been done before, though, and it's just not that easy to make profit with these adventure sports.
So, back to the drawing board with that one.
I think that's an awesome idea. You're a good person. x
ReplyDeleteOh, Jay--
ReplyDeleteAs someone who pined to be a cop, but couldn't, or didn't... as someone who worked on an ambulance for seventeen months, quit, and is now in the process of going back, I struggle mammothly with what "helping people" means.
My parents tried to convince me that helping people could be achieved by teaching, but, really, they just wanted me safe in a classroom wearing a white collar and earning a respectable, professional income.
I think you help people with your attitudes, with your intentions, with the way you treat your fellow man. And I'm pretty convinced that you excel at that.
SO EASY: become a US Citizen, then join the Peace Corps!And do it forever so there's no "what to do after" decision. There. Solved. You're welcome.
ReplyDeleteah i totally want to do something like that. or build a school. or *something*!
ReplyDeleteThis comment (with some unsolicited advice thrown in) is in response to your two most recent posts.
ReplyDeleteYour desire to help people is great. It's just a shame that the free-market economy typically chews-up and spits-out kind and conscientious people. In my experience, genuinely caring people usually finish last in the race for money (which, unfortunately, you need lots of in order to do things like pay rent in Greenwich, or establish an ethical business overseas).
I think our society's growth-at-any-cost economic model has taught people to assume, or at least hope, that life is going to get better and better (the problem being that people usually equate life "getting better" with "getting more money").
The best thing that I ever did was to lower my financial expectations - and I can honestly say I've never been happier. I took a large pay cut and moved to the cheapest place I could find, with room for a garden. It's a place that most people consider to be undesirable, but it suits me just fine. I now live a very frugal, but creative, constructive, and relatively stress-free life.
So, if (for example) living with your parents works for you, don't feel bad about it. Make the most of it - and don't forget to feel lucky for having nice parents.
I like helping people too, and some of the things I've done (as an unpaid volunteer) which I loved, and which others are genuinely very grateful for, are: tutoring (both adult literacy and English as a second language); helping out at RDA (which offers horse riding for disabled people), and putting together decades' worth of my mother's and grandmother's genealogy research into a book (it might sound hopelessly daggy, but I've really been bitten by the family tree bug now, and I've found out some amazing things about my extended family that even my grandmother didn't know).
The thing is, from a certain point of view, less really is more. My advice is: make the most of who you truly *are*, and what you've already got. I reckon that's the path to happiness.
Steph: I'm glad you like the idea -- it's a shame it's not very practical. Thanks tho x
ReplyDeleteMr Apron: You're very generous -- perhaps over-generous, but you've given me something to think about. Attitudes and intentions -- good point.
Jamie: It's just as well the US makes it incredibly easy to become a citizen for anyone who wants to!
Floreta: Aren't you *already* doing good works in the world? And yet you yearn for more...
Sam: Thanks for such an in-depth comment, you raise some interesting points. I think you're right that uninhibited growth can't be sustained indfinitely, and perhaps lowering my expectations wouldn't be a terrible thing. Perhaps the first step though should be doing more voluntary work, as you suggest. But the final point, making the most of who we truly are -- how do you know who you are? That's something I struggle with a lot.