3 Things I Learnt From Feeding Homeless People For 30 Days
Here is the list of things I learnt from February month challenge.
Where To Find Them- I never in my dream thought finding homeless people would be a difficult task. Like most of you, I have seen large number of people who beg in public places. So I assumed it won’t be difficult to find them everyday. I was wrong in a BIG way.
Most of the days, while leaving my office I buy food for homeless people. But I couldn’t find them in public places during night. Many of them move to places which are little difficult to find. It made my task little tougher. I have to keep my eyes wide open to find them.One good thing is my office is located 25Km away from my home. So it gave me a long time to find that ONE person everyday.
Since I started to notice the places where they sleep, I realized that our eyes get blind spot to these places and we notice only spots which we use or the ones which attracts. At the end of 30 days I started to notice lot of non-regular spots where people use it for sleeping and leave early.
How much should I spend — I know its a tough question, some even may consider it sin to keep an eye on money while trying to help others. To be frank I am little stingy when it comes to spending.
Since I have to step aside a small portion everyday, I was too calculative. While doing the calculation this phrase struck me
Treat others how you want to be treated
From then onward I started to choose hotels where I would buy food for me if I was hungry.
Should I expect Gratification: If you ask anyone who indulge in serving others “what do you get out of this ” their answer would be “You will feel the magic, the moment you see a smile in someone’s face”. I am not an exception to this.
Most of them would say “Thanks” or smile once they received the food pocket. But few of them won’t even acknowledge me. It pissed me off initially. Then I started to understand that may be I am pushing them to a bad situation. Where I play the role of giver and them as taker. Some may not be comfortable with that. And more over they didn’t ask me any help, I am assuming my action helps them in a small way. Who knows I may be wrong in a big way.
As days moved on, instead of gratification I just prayed that they take the food and not throwing it in garbage.
At the end this experiment I started to realize that I take many things as granted. Food is one of them. Lesson learnt. Don’t take anything as granted. Many are craving for basic things.
