No One Owes You A Thing: Charity and Society blogged by @niksofly

Society has this idea that once you become successful or you make it out the hood ( and by hood I mean community), you are responsible for ensuring that everyone else gets a better life.   You are now obligated to donate publicly and often.  If you upgrade your parent’s house, there will always be someone that will say “ She/He could have bought something smaller and helped the community”.   Well, uhm, said individual isn’t obligated to do anything, but die. That is the only debt we all have to pay. Why is he/she obligated to do so much and the individuals responsible for the needy’s existence are excused?  If I did not  birth or adopt you, I OWE you NOTHING. That’s right, zip, zilch. nada . I am all for charity and helping those in need, but when a desire becomes obligatory, I have a huge problem. This sense of entitlement annoys me beyond disbelief because it is always a needy individual that criticizes other people and their financial decisions.

I watch social media tear celebrities apart for deciding to put their fortune to good use and acquire more wealth for their family. Do you tell your boss or the CEO to stop making money? No. You want them to continue to make money so that you can receive your measly paycheck. However when a celebrity decides to take his/her hard earned money and invest in the future, all hell breaks loose. Why?  “The rich keeps getting rich and the poor keep getting poorer” is the growing theme.  Newsflash. Maybe the poor should focus on being a supplier rather than a buyer.  Stop having bottle wars and buying Margielas and you too can get wealthier. Leave the strip clubs alone and invest in your future.  Don’t misappropriate your funds then project your failures on someone else because that person decided to do more. 

Yes, there are people that truly need help. Yes, it is a beautiful thing when those who have the ability to help others do so, but individuals make charity ugly when they obligate someone’s pockets other than their own. What are you donating? Who are you helping?  How much of your salary or time did you set aside for the community? You want successful people to donate millions and bend over backwards to help, but you won’t  give the homeless man on the corner $5 from your turn-up fund. You will take care a Jody that is able bodied with no job or ambition, does more narcotics than the law allows, has kids scattered like wild flowers across the nation (ultimately donating to that segment that needs help), but that homeless woman on the corner is who you believe is misusing the money she gets. I realize people need help and I do my best to give back. I tutor, mentor, feed. I am very active, but no successful person should feel like the work they do is not enough because the hood needs more.  Circumstances happen and people with promising futures have misfortune, but not all people in the “hood” are victims of circumstances. Some of those people did not want anything out of life and if it’s a problem to help the veteran who lost everything due to his cancer treatment then it should definitely be an insanely huge issue with helping Bob who decided he wanted to do acid instead of school.

Before someone states “The hood is who made them” ! How so? Did the hood stay up late nights to study so that the individual could ace those entrance and exit exams. Did the hood offer  babysitting services when that teenage mom was trying to work? Where was the hood when that man’s family kept getting robbed? Did the hood step in as a parental figure when that parent walked off?  Exactly. The hood was somewhere ensuring that it is okay.  If it was okay for the hood to be absent, why is it needed for the successful person to be present?

By no means am I saying that we shouldn’t help one another. I believe in charity. I  remember my mother telling me that the only people that owed me anything in life were my father and her. Anything I got from anyone whether it be from family or others was a gift and I should be appreciative.   Appreciate what others do. They aren’t mandated to be  charitable. Whether they donate $1,000 or $10,000,000, be happy that they gave something. They did not have to do it.

-Niko Rose