Navel Gazing: Not for the faint of heart
Oct. 8th, 2010 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bewizeMy current job puts me in close vicinity with a large number of people, many (most?) of whom are so vastly different from me that it's almost like we live in different worlds. Allow me to summarize my recent thoughts:
Some of the people that come here seeking help are just arrogant in their belief that they are right. And you know what? Some of them are right! It's not a statement of their being right/wrong, good/bad, or any other judgment. They just know what they know, even if they don't actually know shit.
Then there are the people who are dumb. These are the ones who make mistakes and then make it worse for themselves. "I got a DUI; I'll drive without a license." or "I got a DUI; I'll get a second one, only this time I'll also have pot in the car." Sometimes these mistakes are genuinely mistakes. Sometimes they are just stupidity trying to prevent future generations from being born.
Lastly, there are the people who are just broken. I've run into quite a few of these lately and it's starting to get to me a bit. You can't help people who are truly broken. These are the people whose whole lives are passing by and they're just hoping to survive until the end. This is the guy who told me that he'd had a bunch of DUIs and gone to jail, but he tries not to remember that part of his life, even as he gets 2 DUIs in a month. He's so clearly an alcoholic one step above homelessness that it breaks my heart. Or maybe this is the guy who is homeless, because he's mentally ill (so very clearly just this side of stable), who attacked someone on the street. He relates his day to me on a regular basis, "I woke up, some guy beat me up and took my money, I ate a sandwich, I was sodomized, the Church gave me a jacket."
And then sometimes, you find people that you don't even know what category they are in. About two months ago, S picked up a woman in front of his drycleaner and gave her and her 9 month old baby a ride to her uncle's place. She's homeless. Babydaddy is in jail. Family is in NYC. She managed to get a job, but they haven't paid her yet. She managed to get a HUD home, but then the landlord demanded sex from her. She can't find a homeless shelter to go to, because they are all full.
It's heartbreaking, because I can't help these people. At best, I can help the arrogant and the dumb ones, but the people who are broken are really at the mercy of God at this point, because there is nothing that I - or anyone else that I know - can do.
I can't make someone clean up their life and become a recovering addict.
I can't make someone sane.
I can't undo the past.
I can't rid the world of creeps and perves and assholes and rapists and thieves and the masses of arrogant, dumb, broken people who make their living by taking advantage of other human beings.
Most of the time, I can shrug this off and tell myself that I'm doing what I can do. I barely make enough money to pay for my own life. I also don't own a home. I volunteer at the shelter. I do pro bono work for these people.
It's not enough.
It will never be enough.
And that's just really hard to live with sometimes.
Some of the people that come here seeking help are just arrogant in their belief that they are right. And you know what? Some of them are right! It's not a statement of their being right/wrong, good/bad, or any other judgment. They just know what they know, even if they don't actually know shit.
Then there are the people who are dumb. These are the ones who make mistakes and then make it worse for themselves. "I got a DUI; I'll drive without a license." or "I got a DUI; I'll get a second one, only this time I'll also have pot in the car." Sometimes these mistakes are genuinely mistakes. Sometimes they are just stupidity trying to prevent future generations from being born.
Lastly, there are the people who are just broken. I've run into quite a few of these lately and it's starting to get to me a bit. You can't help people who are truly broken. These are the people whose whole lives are passing by and they're just hoping to survive until the end. This is the guy who told me that he'd had a bunch of DUIs and gone to jail, but he tries not to remember that part of his life, even as he gets 2 DUIs in a month. He's so clearly an alcoholic one step above homelessness that it breaks my heart. Or maybe this is the guy who is homeless, because he's mentally ill (so very clearly just this side of stable), who attacked someone on the street. He relates his day to me on a regular basis, "I woke up, some guy beat me up and took my money, I ate a sandwich, I was sodomized, the Church gave me a jacket."
And then sometimes, you find people that you don't even know what category they are in. About two months ago, S picked up a woman in front of his drycleaner and gave her and her 9 month old baby a ride to her uncle's place. She's homeless. Babydaddy is in jail. Family is in NYC. She managed to get a job, but they haven't paid her yet. She managed to get a HUD home, but then the landlord demanded sex from her. She can't find a homeless shelter to go to, because they are all full.
It's heartbreaking, because I can't help these people. At best, I can help the arrogant and the dumb ones, but the people who are broken are really at the mercy of God at this point, because there is nothing that I - or anyone else that I know - can do.
I can't make someone clean up their life and become a recovering addict.
I can't make someone sane.
I can't undo the past.
I can't rid the world of creeps and perves and assholes and rapists and thieves and the masses of arrogant, dumb, broken people who make their living by taking advantage of other human beings.
Most of the time, I can shrug this off and tell myself that I'm doing what I can do. I barely make enough money to pay for my own life. I also don't own a home. I volunteer at the shelter. I do pro bono work for these people.
It's not enough.
It will never be enough.
And that's just really hard to live with sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-08 04:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-08 05:08 pm (UTC)