When looking at the world it’s very easy to spot things we think could be improved. There are always people doing things we think they should not be doing. There’s also tons of people living in situations we think they should not be living in. Looking at the world and finding it in a state we don’t agree with usually drives some people to activism to try set things right. There’s usually an assumption that people who are in situations we deem to be worse than ours need our help. We can’t see ourselves living in the conditions that they may be living in and convince ourselves they should be taken out of those situations and placed in situations we deem to be fit. Sometimes a lot of activists have experienced living in those situations and when they manage to get out they feel as if everyone still living in them has to be taken out and saved. This seems like such a noble goal but could there be another interpretation to it? This article explores a different perspective on how helping people out of situations may be the opposite of what those people actually want.
Why the urge to help
Nowadays there’s no shortage of help wherever you may look. Help is found across entire spectrum of different aspects of life such as physical health, mindset, social, financial, lifestyle, education among others. It does not seem to matter at what level you’re at in life there is always someone at a higher level and they are always trying to help you get to the same level they’re at. No matter if you’re at the very bottom or the very top you’ll always find someone trying to help be it philanthropists trying to uplift those hit the hardest or the gurus trying to push those doing just okay to do even better. There is always someone who feels it is their duty to lend a hand and get people out of situations they consider deplorable. The philanthropist will try to get the family a food pack because starvation is not acceptable. The fitness expert will try to get his friends to stop eating burgers because it’s not acceptable. Very different ends of the food spectrum but the same concept.
Most of the times these individuals have moved through the lower levels to get where they are. They have experienced the unpleasant situations and did everything in their power to get out. Their dislike for these situations drove them to climb from these lower levels to where they now feel comfortable. Their memories and traumas from the lower level makes them want to free everyone still there. In their minds they’ve experienced the horrors and it’s only natural that the assumption would be that’s how everyone in that situation feels. These feeling of mutual suffering and common desire to break out motivates these individuals to become activists trying to help everyone get to where they are. This is a very noble cause.
The other common group of individuals who often extend their helping hand are those who have never lived in these lower levels but they got some exposure to life in that level. This is usually due to high levels of empathy that helps them be able to put themselves in the shoes of individuals living in these lower levels through either talking to them, hearing about their stories or experiencing a short glimpse of their lives from a short vacation or visit to the areas. What sparks the fire of activism in these individuals is they cannot imagine how they would survive if they were put in these situation therefore they feel the responsibility of getting all the people living in these horrible situations out. For example when you’ve had running water all your life and go to a community that relies on a community well it’s natural to not be able to comprehend how it could even be possible to live that way.
The above two people are usually praised in societies for their selflessness. They are seen as a representation of good in humanity because they are seen as trying to save it. Ironically there is a deep problem buried in this scenario that I’ve noticed most people seem to miss. We identify any situation that’s different from our personal realities to be unfit. We don’t accept different. We mask our own insecurities of not being able to survive in extreme situations by labelling those situations and ways of life unfit. We deem ourselves as superior to these individuals and inflate our own egos by giving ourselves a sense of importance. We view the people in those situations as weaklings that need our help. That narratives helps us hide our own fears of being inadequate and not being strong enough to be able to survive should we be put in the environments those people are.
Do others want to be like us?
There are situations in which people genuinely seek help to get out of. There is no shortage of people seeking help from strangers so they can improve their lives and escape unfavourable situations. There’s however another set of people that may be in situations that appear to be unfavourable from the outside but the people do not mind their living conditions. This is the group that’s the focus of this article.
Let’s say you live in a good suburb in a lovely environment with all the modern amenities you could need. One day you travel to the rural areas and notice the vastly different lifestyle. There’s no electricity or tap water. People have to work their fields to grow food they eat and raise their own livestock which provide them with meat once in a while. With most of the comforts of the modern world missing it’s easy to feel pity for the individuals who may be living in these conditions which appear to be rough compared to the great city lifestyle.
When you interact with these individuals you’ll be astonished at how they view their lifestyle. When you haven’t worked the field you might wonder how it is possible for a human to do it for hours on end. The answer to that question is usually that they’re used to it and it feels normal to them, in fact they don’t feel like it’s that bad. Coming from the modern world your body may feel like it’s broken after working for a few minutes and that can make you think that these individuals desperately need tractors because if they have the modern machines they wouldn’t have to do such taxing work and they’d have more time for other tasks.
I am sure if you are reading this there’s probably no chance that you may think that having a tractor could ever be seen as a negative for these rural subsistence farmers. After all it’s common sense that with better machinery, productivity goes up as the amount of hard labour goes down. They could use the spare time to do other activities that can be considered to be fun or maybe pursue an education so they can leave these rural areas completely altogether.
A perspective that usually gets lost when looking at situations like this is whether an easier life is what someone might really need. We usually never break down what the purpose of life is. When we look at each of our lives we’re concerned about the same thing. We just want to live which means we’re mostly driven by getting food to eat and a safe shelter from other elements of nature so we can carry on with our game of living. What we do in between our meals that sustain us is merely a distraction that keeps us playing the game and stops us from being idle enough that we start asking the questions as to what the point of life is.
Taking this view that what we do in between meals is merely a distraction an argument can be made that it doesn’t matter what the distraction is. For the individual living in the suburb their distraction is their office job that earns them the meals in between the distractions. Because the work itself is not intense enough to keep these individuals fully distracted they rely on other means of stimulation such as consumption mainly in the form of media and goods. None of these are necessary but they keep us distracted. The rural farmer keeps themselves distracted by working their fields, rearing their animals and performing other labour that keeps them fulfilled. Their need for extra distractions is less as their daily tasks are intense enough to stop their minds from being idle.
If machinery that makes their tasks easier and less intensive then they would need to fill that void with other distractions. There is already a good number of distractions they’d be able to tap into but is it really worth it? Do they want the disruption to their lifestyle that they’ve mastered? Is their game any less worthy than the game that we play?
The more you look and observe different people the more you will realise that we are very different beings. We want different things and react differently to different circumstances. Our beauty as a species is in the different ways we live our lives and play this game. There is no one ideal way of living, I like to think that any way that an individual manages to conjure up their living is the right way of living for them. I may never want to live in their circumstances and that is okay. We should not try to force others to live the same way we do unless if we would want them to force us into living the way they do.
from being a bad thing. I just think help needs to go to people who ask for it. It does not seem like the right thing to identify problems in the way that someone goes about their life and try offer solutions on things that do not bother them or affect them at all. The right kind of help should not be what you deem to be correct but rather the help that an individual or group reaches out to you to ask for. We should not give help that we would wish we received because the person we’re offering help is not us. Rather we should apply more empathy and listen to the needs of others and if we can help them address them do so. Not everyone has to be us and want the same comforts we do or have the same necessities as us.
Conclusion
Not everyone has to be you and that is okay. Those who want to be like you will ask for help and it will mean the world to them if you give it to them. it might just not be the best decision to go disrupt the lives of people who are fine with being themselves.