Poverty has a high contrast tanned face that triggers strong feelings in our hearts to help, cooperate, and spread love. She often gives us a chance to relocate peace from our heart to her home. It’s a connecting process we establish charity or donation, one takes, and one gives. Is it ever wise to show off the help we do for her. Think, how much pain, tears, agony, and inability are crying behind the hand that is seeking help from us? It is not wise to feed our ego by publicizing them on social media.
Our thoughts, actions, and conversations are somehow dominated by social media these days. This media has become the alternative mainstream media, and every trending behavior has got significant control over the users’ minds. It is loud, strong, sensitive, and chaotic.
We are so involved in publicizing everything – new cars, new rings, new love- we got in our everyday life, but we should consider that there is a limit. Without the consent of another person, we should not share anything related to them. Again virtue signaling has become a regular and normal trend, but please stay alert. While signaling your virtue, you must not show off that someone else is inferior to you.
This is typical human nature that we feel the urgency to help someone if they are in trouble. If the charity is an effect, empathy should be the cause. After seeing a banana peel on the pavement, don’t you think “ops! I must throw it away; otherwise, someone may fall.” Suddenly you feel the urgency to save someone you don’t even know from a possible danger! People, too, will never know that they are saved by you! No one sees, no one knows, all are gone in vain, never. Here you go, the glorious charity begins.
During this COVID-19 period, people are more in need than ever, and many of us have become unemployed. Consequently, people have come forward to get help and to help. Meanwhile, the beautiful charity is losing its appeal by frequent showoff, isn’t it? When it is involved with the self-respect of another person, it is not wise to show it off. We don’t know the history of every person who is receiving donations.
Maybe he will cry out alone after receiving the aid because of his inability to earn. Perhaps he is too ashamed to let it know anybody else, or we never know someone can even commit suicide if he feels humiliated. It is not wise to show someone inferior in public.
Hunger is the first pain and fundamental need we encounter in our life, feeding the hungry is the noblest act. A lot of people are in the act of charity, some of them are making it really depressing. The most common scenario we see is that a 3/4 kg pack is too heavy for the one rich person that he needs to seek help from five or more people to hold the bag for the one to hand it over.
On the other hand, the person who is receiving the relief package is the strongest. He alone can carry the bag no matter if he is starving or not. What on earth!
Posing for donating never looks heroic, rather it seems disgusting that you are seeking attention by highlighting another person’s inability. Maybe some of us do not intend to hurt those people, and they think that this way they can raise awareness. But you never know how someone else is getting that, someone may follow you just to feed his ego. The consequence is dangerous!
You can simply show a community, their situation, and location when you intend to focus on poor people and their needs. If they feel no problem, you can take a photo but reconsider your decision while taking a picture of children. Always try to put yourself in the shoes of the person you are going to publicize. Try to present people with their dignity. If the motto is to share your experience in public or social media to help people never express anything that looks like a show off or that represents high contrast social class difference.
We all are here waiting for our eternal journey to the same destination. Someone will go early, someone will go later on. We are companion travelers to each other on this planet. Nothing is permanent.
Atika Cherry is a creative writer.
Email: wildparrotbd@gmail.com