We aren't who we want to be. We are what society demands. We are what our parents choose. We don't want to disappoint anyone, we have a great need to be loved. So we smother the best in us. Gradually, the light of our dreams turns into the monster of our nightmares. They become things not done, possibilities not lived.
And we all know that there is a lot of charity out there without love. Every week, a “charity ball” is held. People pay a fortune to buy a table, take part and have fun in their jewels and their expensive clothes. We leave thinking that the world is a better place because of the amount of money collected for the homeless in Somalia, the refugees from Yemen, or the starving in Ethiopia. We stop feeling guilty about the cruel display of poverty, but we never ask ourselves where that money is going.
Those without the right contracts to go to charity ball or those who can’t afford such extravagance will pass by a beggar ang give him a coin. Fine. What could be easier thab tossing a coin at a beggar in the street? It’s usually easier than not doing so.
What a sense if relief, and for just one coin! It’s cheap and solves the beggar’s problem.
However, if we really loved him, we would do a lot more for him.
Or we would do nothing. We wouldn’t give him that coin and - who knows? - our sense of guilt at such poverty might awaken real Love in us. I
After reading about ten of those self-help books, I saw that they were leading nowhere. They have an immediate effect, but that effect stops as soon as I close the book. They’re just words,describing an ideal world that doesn’t exist, not even for the people who wrote them.