With A Little Help From My Friends

Aaaand I didn't make it - to the gym.

Somehow I thought if I just came out and confessed it right at the beginning it would make it sound not so bad.

Totally didn't work.

I know what I said yesterday...but I do have a good excuse. I really, truly do.

I saw something terrible this morning.

Panhandlers are pretty common in the downtown metro area. I don't think I've ever been down there where I haven't seen someone standing out on the corner. And it sounds horrible, but I'm skeptical.  I think for a large majority, these are people that are just working the streets. And I have trouble with someone standing on the corner and asking for money all day.  There are too many options in this world for that to be necessary.

And I don't want to sound cold-hearted, because I'm not. But the reality is that the large majority of homelessness is caused by mental illness. Mental illness to a degree that these people can no longer function in mainstream society. These are not people that usually have the clarity to find a piece of cardboard and a marker and calmly stand on a corner for 8 hours. Not to mention go through the bureaucratic process of securing a license...So I tend to think those that are on the corner are there by choice.

Okay, I know I'm making big generalizations and assumptions. But the whole point is that I'm unaffected by what I see. Unaffected and mostly unsympathetic.

 But this morning I watched a guy salvage in a gas station trash can for food. Feverishly, desperately searching for something to eat. I know he was working fast because he was trying to find something before someone came out of the store and ran him off. It was like it he was trying to so hard, he just needed to find something.

I don't think you can be human if you see something like that and you aren't impacted. It's not like someone standing on a corner asking for your money. This was someone that was really hungry. This was someone that was just trying to survive. This  was someone that was desperate. Someone that needed help.

Of course, I had no cash. Because I never have cash. And I'm not 100% sure, because I didn't ask, but I don't think he took debit cards.

But I couldn't do nothing. I couldn't ignore it. So I rolled down my window and gave him my lunch. Not that it was great, but at least it was something.

During lunch instead of going to the gym, I went and got food. And I thought about how utterly grateful and blessed I was to be able to do so.

Then I spent the rest of the day thinking of all the ways I could have still gone to the gym...thank you Guilt Complex for being an ever present force in my life.

Oh well. At the end of the day, I'm still fat and a hungry guy was fed.  Fair trade.