I watched the unfortunate homeless man as he made his way down the cab. The way he staggered and slumped over as he walked, made him seem so helpless. However, the persistent beggar was a little more conniving and tactful then everyone had expected from his outward appearance.
As the train became more compact, the air become more and more thin, and the people started to become restless. The beggar continued to ask for money, but it seemed like the people were becoming more resistant as more people jammed onto the train. Petty soon the train became so compact that it was extremely difficult to move. No one was moving through the train except for the beggar. Originally I remember thinking how I admired his courage and persistency. However, as I watched him more and more with a careful eye, I noticed the beggar’s real objection. He would “accidentally” bump into random passengers and pick pocket their belongings. He was extremely talented at what he did as none of his victims noticed that they had just been robbed. The way he innocently bumped into random people and then smoothly slipped his hand into their pockets. I was fascinated with what I was witnessing. I looked back down on my slip of paper, and tried again to make out the words. “To give means to get ten fold back, to ignore…….” To ignore…what I asked myself again? Just then the words seemed to jump out of the page. “To give means to get ten fold back, to ignore…….means to loose something worthwhile.” What exactly did I gain from giving the homeless man money? I guess a sense of gratification. What did the people loose that shunned him away? In this sense, their wallets represented their worthwhile belongings.
I was silent about the wrongdoings that were occurring right before my eyes. Mainly, because I agreed to what he was doing. If I was put in his “helpless” position, I would do the same thing. I would train myself to survive in the “coldhearted world”. If this meant stealing food from a supermarket to eat that night or breaking in someones car to escape the harsh cold. “Desperate times call for desperate measures.” It’s all about survival in today’s world. When you are put in a desperate situation, you do what you have to do to get by.
The poor man had a legitimate excuse to turn to “desperate measures”. He had to steal to survive. However, today we have financial, well-off people that take advantage of ignorant people. Stephen Carter takes up the roll in explaining this concept in “The Best Student Ever”. He uses the example of the stock brokers that suggest buy when it means hold, and hold when it means sell (40). The power of persuasion plays a key roll in this. Companies are able to suavely persuade stock brokers to “bump” up the grade level on their stocks either through cash packets or gifts. Thus, the broker and the company make out with “pockets” of cash, and take advantage of the individual buyer. “To ignore is to loose something worthwhile.” The stock broker disregarded the trust that the individualized buyers had instilled in him to make profits. And he too lost something worthwhile. His integrity was stripped of him. He unnecessarily took advantage of innocent people to increase his power, and that is looked down on in my particular sense. When you ignore something, you don’t necessarily have to lose something in the money sense. It can be much greater, like in this sense, your self-worth and self-respect can be cashed out on.
Some would argue that business corruption is the result because of ignorance to business laws. Ignorant workers take advantage of ignorant people without any sense of wrongdoings. This theory is stated in “Lessons Learned in Business School”. Here, Robert Prentice theorizes that business law and all of its ethics have given way to “business practices”. Students get their legal guidance from professors who look at business law as “impediment”. The author examines the perplexities of the Enron scheme. Partly it was mixed up with ethical dilemmas, but he states that it also had to do with ignorance to laws, and how business schools have played a roll in this disaster as they have mixed educational priorities. I disagree with Prentices main theory. Yes, business schools may now mainly focus on business practices more then business law. But there is a sense of right and wrong instilled into all of us. The broker that overstated the earnings for the companies can’t base his corrupt decisions on overall ignorance to business laws. He was inflating or deflating the earnings based on his “buy or sell” recommendations. And he made out with coorporite contributions and left the stock buyers helpless. This illegitimate “ignorance to business laws” excuse in the business world has been recognized by the Supreme Court, and has enacted a law that no person can use ignorance as a means for excuse resulting in corrupt decisions.
We put faith and trust in people we don’t even know everyday. Will the broker actually make the right investment that will advance my well-being or will this homeless guy actually buy food with this money I give him? Even after all the scandals and corruption that have happened in the business world, E. M. Forester explains that “one must be fond of people and trust them if one is not to make a mess of life” (164). Even though we have no way of determining what people are like, “for the purpose of living one must assume that the personality is solid” (164). This is true in all senses. It’s our own human nature to trust people somewhat, and it’s a necessity to survive. To go through life without a sense of trust would be, like Forester put it, “a mess”. Today’s world has gotten to the point where it’s almost impossible to make it on your own without trusting the actions of others.
The trust that we put in each other is intertwined with reliability: The acceptance that one will actually come through in a certain situation. The people that we rely on everyday are not held accountable by some legal contract seen in the business world. “It is a matter for the heart, which signs no documents” (164). Forester explains that although we put trust in so many people, we often come up with the short end of the stick when it comes to “reliability”. Most people will let us down in times of need. They don’t necessarily care about your well-being. People today are so caught up in their own personal troubles that they disregard your own. Reliability can only be trusted when “there is a natural warmth” between two people. A warmth that binds two people’s trust and acceptance. This is why we hold, to some levels, an acceptance of let down when it comes to everyday trust between two parties without that “natural warmth”. When I get my bank statements every month, I trust that my teller rightly made each transaction accurately. However, I still sit down and calculate my bank statements so that I am fully confident that she did her job. I put my trust in myself to go over the actions of the people I can’t rely on.
The poor man from the train is the only type of person that I can think of where he doesn’t have to trust many people. This is because he doesn’t have to depend on many people. The more people you depend on, the more trust you have to exert overall.
We all embody a sense of “poorness” within us. No one is perfect, and no one lives a perfect life. Maybe you live a life like the homeless man’s. You don’t have a lot of money and live a struggling life. Or maybe you have all the money in the world, but you work too much and you don’t embody attributes of an average living person. You could long for a loving spouse, trusting friends, or if not all a loving family. To be poor in my mind means to be without something. You long for it, work to get it, and not always achieve success.
Sometimes you have to balance out your living life with your work life. My theory is that you can’t be living fully while you work and vise-ver-ca. There is a defining line that separates work and life. Some might argue: what if you like your job so much that it’s seems as if you are living fully. And my response is that this illusionary world isn’t possible. Jobs are something that we all dread to some level. Jobs are something that we do everyday to bring in the money. We get paid for the living opportunities that we loose while working; the opportunity costs.
However, we don’t always have a choice regarding the dichotomy of balancing work and life. The poor man doesn’t have a choice. He lacks an essential element to live in today’s world, money. He has to devote the majority of his life to work in order to survive. If he didn’t, then he wouldn’t be able to accumulate the money for food. The abundance of work weighs down his potential to live life to its fullest. Instead of begging for food, he could be out taking walks out in the park, reading a book, or traveling around the world. Life has many joys and opportunities, but work has a way of limiting these “joys”. It takes away the time we need to life fully and joylessly.
The investment banker that came to talk to us exhibited a similar life to the homeless man. His job entailed going to work for long amounts of hours, then returning home to do laundry, then going to sleep, and then waking up the next morning for the same routine. This is how he described his life. He sounded as if he hated his routine life. Work has a way of bringing down our spirits by restricting our lives. He worked long hours and he wasn’t living life at all. He was giving up the joys of living to make large amounts of money. The difference between this guy and the homeless guy is that this guy will eventually run to an end of his sorrows. The day where he can retire with all the money that he made and live the life that he had been longing for. The homeless guy doesn’t have a way out. He will be doing that same begging act all though his life, unless he pickpockets a guy with pocket change that has the potential to turn around his life.
One the other side is the guy that never works and lives life to its full potential. Is it possible to never work and live life to its fullest potential? Is there such a thing? Yes there is but it is very rare. Either you have a very rich relative that left you a hefty sum of cash to live on the rest of your life, or you won the lotto and you never again have to work. The odds prove that this happens to very little people. But when it does happen it is harmonious. You experience things that only a few people have ever done in history. You do what you want, when you want. Work doesn’t have the ability to anguish your demeanor. People only dream of the life where you don’t have to work. It’s such a rare thing that it’s hard to even visualize. In the “real” world however, we do have to work somewhat in order to survive. We could work short hours and make just enough money to get by, and then live life the way we wanted to. But your life would still be limited because in order to experience some joyous things in life, you need money.
It’s extremely hard to balance out life and work on this “shaky” balance beam. You have to determine the life you want to live so that the life you do live fits your wants and ambitions.
Works Cited
- Carter, Stephen L. “The Best Student Ever”. Basic Books. New York: 1996.
- Prentice, Robert. “Lessons Learned in Business School”. New York Times, August 20, 2002.
- Forster, E. M. “What I Believe”. Primis Database, Mcgraw-Hill: N/A.
