So, it's Poverty week in Diversity class. I've always wanted to be one of those folks who helps the poor. I feel like such a yuppie saying it, "I want to help the POOR!". Well a yuppie without that cash. What is that? Intern yuppie? A guppy? I've tried. I got really involved with the orphanages in Korea. I taught ESL to kids at the orphanage once a week for about a year. I was... freaking terrible at it. I mean, I brought flash cards and we did games, but they didn't speak much better English than when I first met them... and I'm not sure how much of it had to do with me :"). They were good kids, though. Wild crazy kids who made me tear my hair out, but good kids all the same.

Then I got back and I thought, "I'll do social work!" Everyone I talked to took one look at me and said, "Don't do it! Don't do it!" People kept on telling me about all the folks who commit suicide because they just can't make a dent. They told me about how much you take on and how you have to either become numb or quit. And I thought... oh well. So, I took that job, helping kids, and I couldn't do it, I don't know why, I lasted one freaking month and then I moved to another state. Really, mature, Jin. Anyway, then there was last year. I took the job in the needy families room because... there I was, trying to make a difference again, and-- well that's turned out 'GREAT'. I just am starting to realize that maybe I can't help being a f*ing yuppie, maybe I can't help the poor.

-but... Well, then I did this volunteer thing, and I just- I hate dealing with sensitive information, and there were all these people and all this... emotion. It's like, I could feel what they felt and what they thought. It went as follows:

1.) Who the hell are you?
2.) Who the hell do you think I am?
3.) Oh I guess they think you're cool.
4.) Wow, you think I'm just like anybody else... sweet!
5.) I still don't trust you.

Well, that lasted only the one time. I felt like I was on the first day of a new job and I already had my fill with the job I had. I just couldn't see myself doing it very long and on top of that, everyone thought I was someone I wasn't... It just squashed my brain.

Now, I'm here... I've got a basketful of unfinished business and no way forward. I am a yuppie with a part of a job, reading articles about cool things other people did, looking at an economy that promises to collapse in on itself and I think, "What can I do?" I mean, I'm not writing a check. Even if I had the money, what? "Here's some money, good luck." I mean, that's no way to treat a human being. Oh, right, look at me wave my checkbook and all your problems will go away. I don't think so. So, on I go. I check Facebook for the hundredth time. I think about all the work I have to do to get good at all the things I'm bad at and I despair.

It's like, "Thanks school. Now I'm great at being 'creative' and finding more than one way to make a box. I'm really helpful." Goll. So what do you think? Can you make a real difference? Or are you just... a gluyuppie?

Helping people is hard. >_< It seems exponentially harder if you have to deal with people in unfortunate situations directly. Something like packaging up food for needy families isn't as bad, but at the same time you don't really get to see the impact of what you're doing. I have no idea how to help people in serious poverty...
» randomjunk on 2013-10-11 05:14:41

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