On the cold days that make your cheeks rosy and your nose run, it seems you pass as many chic Parisians sitting in cafes, bundled in wool pea coats and Burberry scarves and sipping hot coffee as you see Parisians shivering and hungry in dark corners and alleys.
I recently did some service work with the American Church in Paris, handing out sandwiches and juice to the homeless. I knew that a group of six girls passing out a hundred-or-so sandwiches that day wouldn't do much to solve the problems of hunger and extreme poverty—in fact, it wouldn't solve the fact that tomorrow, those people will be hungry again. But I know how grateful they were to have something to eat for lunch that day. I know how much they needed it.
I guess, as I was walking around Paris and pondering it all, I realized that to not help one person because all that you can do is not enough to solve the greater, systemic problems at work—to not help someone because all that you can do is not enough to even solve all the greater problems in that individual's life—is what they sometimes call a self-fulfilling prophecy.
So helping out one person in need as I'm walking down the street wont solve the problems of the world; there is a world though, at one moment of a day, on one block of the street, where there are two stomachs—one is full, and one is empty. In that universe, of that moment, you have the power to solve all of the problems of the world. You can fill all the empty stomachs of that world. Or, in that universe, of that moment, you can ignore the opportunity and walk on by.
And here's the thing. When you give, you receive...
Aha, so it's really about self-interest and feeling all warm and fuzzy inside? It's really not about giving to others, it's about making yourself feel better because you feel guilty for getting the sweet end of the lollipop in life?
Well...
Maybe it is.
(WHAT?!!)
Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm the only narcissistic jerk out there that can't help but see the world only out of my own two eyes. But it's hard to be selfless. Sometimes I think we don't even realize how often our good intentions are designed to benefit ourselves.
And even at those moments when we come closest to pure, untainted love and selflessness, there is not anything on Earth much sweeter than that feeling. You do, truly, receive when you give.
But you know what? That's okay. Think back on that little world I was talking about earlier, in which there is one full stomach and one empty stomach; if the person with the empty stomach can have a warm lunch that day because the person with the full stomach is a selfish cretin with a guilty conscience trying to feel good about her or himself, that world, at that moment, is still at peace.
I'm not preaching. In fact, pretty much no one reads this blog but me. So this is more a reminder to myself, to remember how important it is to give, to remember that I can always buy a couple extra things at the grocery store and make a couple of mini-worlds a better place as I walk back home...
It's a reminder that I shouldn't feel helpless and weighed down by the state of the earth, by all the problems that I feel powerless to solve, because there is always that little world around me—that particular moment and space that I occupy—in which I do have the ability to, for want of a better, less trite expression, "do the right thing."
As I said, Paris has done a lot for me.
...and I think it is my duty to do what I can for Paris in return. It's reciprocity. If I give back when I receive, and receive when I give back, then begins a cycle.
Maybe, or maybe probably, it's a cycle that stays in the same place—that never gets out of the rut. Or maybe it's a cycle that moves all parties involved upwards towards a better future. Or maybe it's neither of those. I really don't know.
But I just don't see how it could make anything worse.
I'm sure to someone out there who reads this, or even to myself when I read this in the future, this post will seem a bit naive... but this is how I feel now, and this is what I felt inspired to write about today.
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