It got me thinking about the huge differences in people's life styles. On the one hand you have people who can afford their own planes, living in huge homes, eating the yummiest, best quality food, having more clothes than they can wear in a year, private boats and able to afford holidays overseas a few times a year. Not to mention if they start feeling unwell they can afford to see a private doctor. On the other hand you have the people who work for them who live in shacks, eat mostly cheap, poor quality, carb based foods (because it's the cheapest way to feel full) and if they get sick have to face the government clinics and hospitals. Which is enough of a nightmare that most people who use these facilities wait until they feel like they are dying before they go.
Don't get me wrong, I don't begrudge anyone their success or circumstance. But I do wonder if these elite people are even aware of the challenges that the 99% face in their daily lives. Of walking for hours to get to work, to get paid a monthly salary that's less than their weekly grocery bill.
It makes me almost grateful that I do know how the 99% live. That I am living like the 99% live. That I know what it's like to choose petrol for my car over food for the house, because if I can't get to work there will be no food next month. Why do I say this?
I can remember very clearly when I was more middle class than down on my luck... Overhearing a conversation between a director of the company I was working for explaining to the cleaning / tea lady that she needed to learn to budget her money better than constantly needing an advance.
Let's break this down: a person earning a director's salary, who can afford to pay out of pocket expenses like medical bills that aren't quite covered by their medical aid, a car service, vet bills; is telling a person who earns less than a weekly grocery bill to budget better.
I'd rather know what it's like that every cent is literally allocated to barely surviving. Where a sick child, a car service or any other surprise expense is not so much an inconvenience that means this month I can't get a new outfit, or need to cut back on eating out. It's having to choose food over that expense.
It's listening to a group of people in a skills development course discussing what to do if they catch a person stealing sugar from the work place. The expected answer is to report that person for theft. Hearing their answer humbled me. They explained they would approach this thief and find out why they are stealing sugar (maybe this person doesn't have food at home and they will instead create a stokvel to help them out).
Knowing what I do about that inequality in living, and how easily through no fault of a person but through a series of unfortunate events life can go from comfortable to poverty stricken in a matter of moments. It's having empathy with cars billowing black smoke because you know what it means. It means they are choosing to eat over getting a service, because even with the black smoke their car is still going.
If more people out there knew what the real world, outside of financial freedom, was like. There would be more of us campaigning for equality. For upliftment. Not charity, for raising people up through education and through giving them the chance most of us had at birth. Teaching to fish rather than giving out fish.
So I am grateful to have lived a life that has allowed me to experience this. Because I used to judge. And now I don't. Now I have empathy.
Hopefully my experience, and my little explanation above is enough to help you to not judge the billowing smoke coming from exhausts, or when your lower level employee comes asking for an advance to ask if there's a problem at home that you can help with.
Hopefully hearing about the other side of life will help you gain the empathy I got, without having to learn it the hard way.
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