So today while out getting my lunch, I decide to do my normal walk. I stop to get food and relax when two women and 4 kids approach me. They ask me for money to get the kids some food. Now let me say that I wanted to judge them but I said let me step out the box and hear them out. Anytime kids are involved you think let me help, no kid should be hungry. So instead I tell her no I wasn’t going to give money but I could walk with them to get the kids food. Now as much as the adults could have been potentially hungry if there are kids, the kids are the ones that would receive anything before able-bodied adults.
She then proceeded to tell me no we don’t need the food we need the money. Wait. Wayment. Stop the presses, stop the damn presses in my Jerome from Martin voice. You just asked me for money for food. I offer you food and you don’t want said food. Okay, this is your hustle. You can’t be honest about what you want the money for. You have your kids watching you beg for money and they do look hungry but you don’t want food to feed them. This is when I have to turn my political correctness off. Let me first start off by giving you some background about my life. I come from humble beginnings. My siblings with my mom were one time in a shelter to prevent from living from family because at the time it wasn’t a good situation to be in. I have had to wear hand me downs and shop at the Good Will. At the time when you are a kid with no concept of life you feel like your life is over. I have watched my mom with no car walk us to the sitters, then to work, then back to the sitters and then we catch a bus back home. I have seen my mom take a 3rd shift job so that she didn’t have to have a sitter at a job that she didn’t like and could see tears in her eyes out of frustration but she kept working hard to provide.
With that said when you watch your mom give you paper food stamps before the days of electronic debit looking food stamp cards to get milk and other necessities I can’t bring myself to understand someone outside hustling with their kids watching and not take food if you really need it. I know times get hard. We live in America where just because as a country we are better off than most many kids if they aren’t in school do not eat. Now I informed her that if their kids are hungry there were places that provide meals all year-long for her and their family. So it’s pretty safe to say that she is out here hustling for something other than food. It can be a number of things but what it wasn’t going to be any of my coin to finance it. I don’t mind helping others. I was helped along the way in life but I also know hard work. I pray that those kids don’t get accustomed to that. I pray that if they have to look at life the way I did and want more than sitting in the hot sun asking for others to give them what most have to work hard for.
Listen in these troubling times often we are faced with folks losing jobs or suffering from minor and major setbacks. Most of the hard-working will experience this the most. The ones who want more out of life and are there hitting the pavement often working two or more jobs to survive. We need to check the ones that just want to sit around and just collect. I don’t know those women situations and to some this will come off as the most judgmental piece to date but the reality is that begging with no plan in place will get you no where. You can give a person food or you can get them somewhere to get a job and they can feed their family for quite some time. The goal isn’t in the temporary. The goal is in finding solutions. Please understand with every hustle it’s only a mirage if it’s not backed with hard work period. That’s why drug dealers who don’t have no sense will get flashy cars but no substance to live life off of. Get a real hustle. A job, a career, a passion that will sustain you for years to come. That comes with hard work. If you going to hustle, hustle with some hard work. It don’t cost nothing to beg.
