THE $100 DOLLAR BILL THAT STAYED IN MY WALLET AND THE OPPORTUNITY LOST....

I was walking towards a Noah’s Bagels in Woodland Hills this morning. There was a lady crouched down near the curb in front. She did not at all look like someone who could get a job...she looked weathered, and defeated, possibly with some mental problems. She was probably in her 40’s. She asked if I could spare some change.

Now I have some decisions to make. What is the ”standard” response behavior that our society has established in dealing with this type of situation? The way I see it, society puts absolutely no stigma behind just walking by this lady and not even acknowledging her existence. Why?, because societal norms say that she is not “family” and therefore, we have absolutely no responsibility whatsoever to come to her aid, or interact with her....besides, she is just wanting money, and if people give her money...it is just going to reward this dependent behavior. If you wanted to act outside of societal norms then you might give her a quarter, or even a dollar if you are feeling incredibly charitable. I gave this lady a dollar..and she thanked me sincerely. I quickly assessed that this wasn’t someone who was capable of ”rising like a Phoenix”. There was no practical point to ”teaching her how to fish”. She relied on people on the streets to ”give her fish”, to keep her alive...I said ”alive”, NOT content or even ”living” by any standard that you and I would define as livable--not comfortable, or warm at night, or dry at night....not respectable to the general public----money from you or me was just going to give her a chance at staying alive for the near future. I wasn’t going to give her dignity, or hope, or happiness, but I could give her charity...and maybe a little more.

Her parents are somewhere ...most likely she has parents who are alive...maybe even a brother or a sister, maybe even children of her own. It is quite obvious that no one knows where she is.....because no one is missing her. She is unaccounted for.... Something has gone terribly wrong for her to be crouched where she was today. There was a day not too many years ago when she was welcomed onto this planet as a new baby girl. She came into this world with hope and celebration....just like you and me. There is nothing to celebrate now. Things aren’t going to get any better for this woman....unless people like you and me do something thoughtful and almost effortless.

I went into Noah’s and then I came out and gave her another bill, this time a $5 bill. Who set the standard where we give people who have absolutely nothing a quarter or even a dollar? I am not rich by any definition but I wasn’t going to feel the loss of that $6 in the slightest. As I drove away I remembered that I had a $100 bill in my wallet. What kept me from giving her the $100? I think I was a victim of something that I am often critical of in society. I was a victim of conventional “norms”, something for which I have little regard. I had given her $6 which was way more than she was probably going to get from anyone else...so my job was done, right? After the $6 I could start thinking about myself again, and could put her out of my mind...my ”good deed” was done; hurrah for me! But, why would I stop there?...if I had given her the $100 bill I would have changed her life for several days...maybe even a week or more. I, on the other hand, wouldn’t miss the $100 bill. I like $100 bills and I don’t often have them in my wallet but my life isn’t going to change one speck if I give her my $100. Isn’t she worth that much....? It was (my) chance, (my) opportunity...and I fell short.

“life is defined by the opportunities, even the ones we miss” - F. Scott Fitzgerald

(3) amazing and transcendent things can happen if I had given her the $100 bill.

1. I am going to make this woman’s life much more comfortable for the next few days, or even a week or more. I am going to remove a little bit of the anxiety that comes with having to beg for food money every day of your life.

2. The woman will feel something she rarely ever feels...that someone cared. That someone was thoughtful enough to give someone like her a “hard earned” $100 bill. This might be the only time in her life that she really feels like someone made a grand concession on her behalf.

3 . As the giver of the $100 I would have the pleasure of knowing that I changed someone’s life in just a few seconds...and just by giving her something that I can surely spare. I will get to change the course of the next few days for this woman...with almost no effort at all...I didn‘t have to move big rocks up a hill...or take a day off to help someone. It was routine.

I didn’t give this woman the $100 bill and it is because I didn’t think outside of the box....I played by society’s paltry standards....I lived below the very low bar that our society sets when it comes to helping strangers. It is a very low bar. We give homeless people (spare change)..the kind of money that we don’t like dangling in our pockets. It’s like giving them food we are ready to throw away. What kind of a gesture is that? We might spare a dollar if we just won the lottery but usually we are dealing in coins. Who set that standard? ....There are billionaires out in this country, lots of them,....how can anyone justify being a billionaire, even for a day?!.....it just seems perverse to me. A billion dollars in the bank should feel like a ”hot potato”, or like a time bomb. Do you remember the game where someone threw you something and you wanted to get rid of it as fast as you could? They called that game “hot potato”....OK, keep 100 million dollars for yourself if it makes you feel good but why not take on the role of someone who can change countless lives. Find a poor family with young children who can only dream of going to Disneyland and make that dream come true....what a privilege that is!...Can you imagine knowing that something you did that took NO effort was going to allow a few children to experience Disneyland for the first time in their lives?, and allow their parents to feel the joy and pride of seeing their children happy. No matter how much (or little) money I have I can always give some of it to someone who needs it much more than I do....I can give without it changing my standard of living in the slightest...that should be an easy standard to meet...for everyone...

I, myself, am not even coming close to meeting that standard....I wonder sometimes if more evolved aliens from another galaxy came down to our earth and witnessed how some of us live in opulence, saturated with money and convenience...while a huge segment of our population lives close to the poverty line...children go without food, they go without toys, and without shoes..... Wouldn’t these aliens report back to their planet that our society is very un-evolved and selfish...greedy, heartless, uninhabitable? They might even say that they found no intelligent life forms on our planet...because they might define intelligence differently than we do. I think they might...they might see us as low life forms. Who could fault them if they had higher standards?

I have a friend who gave one of his own kidneys to a stranger he never met...just to save her life....he thought of the gesture himself...no one put it in his head...certainly society doesn’t expect you to give one of your kidneys to anyone, let alone a stranger...HE did that...he might get to go back to that other planet with the aliens..but how many of the rest of us?

OK, I took the time to give her $6, but it came at the expense of nothing for me....Just once, I would like to book a room at the Four Seasons in a town....then, before I check in...I would drive down the road to a cheap hotel and wait in the lobby for someone to check in....I would stop them and give them the key to my hotel room at the Four Seasons...and I would, in exchange, take their hotel room key at the cheap hotel. I would stay in the room designed for them that night...and they would stay in the room designed for me....this way, I am changing places with them ...for only one small night of my life. I get to experience their reality..put on their shoes....hardly anything amazing...but, according to what I consider to be the very low standards that exist in our society....an act such as that would seem heroic...completely above and beyond normal human behavior...though it shouldn’t be...it would only be an act of thoughtfulness.

It is my opinion that our propensity to separate ourselves from the lives of our fellow citizens is a travesty, a disgrace....our “circles” of focus are incredibly small in most cases....I see it as a total blind spot....a blindness that is responsible for a great deal of indifference...and a great deal of greed.

I think it would be embarrassing to say that I was a billionaire....it would be like living in a cold city in the winter and owning ALL the blankets...everyone else has to go cold while we have room after room and closet after closet of unused blankets...enough blankets to warm up an entire town...

I was blind today.....I really didn’t go out of my way in the slightest to help this woman....(only) in the slightest. The rest of the 23 hours and 58 minutes in my day were spent on my own needs. I will try to not let it happen again...I will try to always question society’s standards on everything....for the most part, I think we are taught to look at what is 2 inches in front of us...very low standards, indeed.

I know we have to make decisions about these kinds of things...sometimes people will take advantage of us...but I decided a long time ago that I would rather risk being gullible, then risk being insensitive and cynical on this issue. I can afford to be gullible...but I can’t afford to be callous. I can’t afford to miss out on opportunities to be human.

food for thought...