Why does money control the world? This question will never leave my head and the
only logical reason I can think of is greed. A piece of paper that some people
say is worth a certain amount drives people to kill, steal, cheat, and lie. Not
only this but in our greed driven society we let these little pieces of paper
define who we are as people and the content of our characters. Is someone who
makes a lot of money funnier than someone who may be without a home? Are they as
genuine or humane? Do they even have a sense of basic humbleness? Or are they
just better because they have some more numbers sitting in an account than the
next guy?
I recently traveled to Chicago where I encountered two homeless men and a women
amongst our aimless wandering through the city streets. My first cynical,
typical, thought was “ oh no, these encounters are always awkward.” But as we
walked past the man on his knees helping his companion in the wheelchair gave us
nothing but a simple, honest, hello. We returned the friendly gesture and
continued walking past the woman laying on her cot next to a cement highway
barrier. For some reason as we walked on I found myself completely speechless.
At this exact moment everything clicked. I realized that the amount of money in
your wallet is no correlation to the amount of compassion in your heart.
Humanity is not defined by the car you drive or the brand of shirt on your back.
No, humanity is defined by the people who can put these idols aside and give a
simple hello. What you have doesn’t decide how decent you are as a person. When
we all start seeing and accepting each other for who we are on the inside what
we have on the outside will become irrelevant. I hope for the day a homeless man
can walk down the streets and receive the same mutual respect as the
millionaire, or the “average person”.
I now seek out the real part of people. I am able to encounter everyone with the
same respect and appreciation and long for the simple hello and what will
follow. I enjoying sharing simple humanity with another human. In the end once
you drop everything that’s all we are; genuine, good hearted, humans. The sooner
we realize this the sooner the world will understand true peace, respect, and
humanity.