In response to “The Street Life Fantasy…” post

Original post, by u/katebush777

My comment was getting buried, so I decided to try and add to the conversation by means of a separate post instead. Feel free to downvote this to oblivion if you feel so inclined. My hope is that you’ll at least give it a read first though.

I would tend to agree with most of what you are saying, but not with the approach, and your sentiment.

Honest question: What posts or comments were saying that they were intending to live on the streets as a choice? I saw at least one conversation in which someone was saying that they give up, and refuse to try anymore, but I didn’t see anything openly stating an intention of living on the streets.

Clearly you are correct in saying that life takes a great deal of effort, and that we have to take responsibility for ourselves. However, it’s pretty naive for someone to have a realistic expectation that beating someone over the head with that information is likely to result in them saying, “Oh yeah, you’re right. I am just being weak minded.”

There are a lot of parents who would attempt to take this approach with their kids, for example, and they tend to only succeed in vilifying themselves and alienating their kids in many cases. We have to remember to speak with people respectfully, and attempt to inspire and motivate them, rather than attempting to verbally grab them by the back of the neck, saying “Do it! Otherwise you’ll deserve what you get.”

The fact of the matter is that each of us gets to approach our own lives, and perception of our situation, with our own devised perspective. I mention this specifically in the context of telling others how they should assess the nature of our societal circumstances. For example, how acceptable they view the proposed “rules” of our path to survival/success. If all of those that came before us had this attitude, then we wouldn’t presently benefit from what they decided had been unacceptable at the time. For example, it is only relatively recently that others had fought to bring about the five day work week, workplace safety laws, and other such things. To be sure, during these times as well, others had been counseling the unsatisfied individuals to stop whining about how things “have always been”.

We have to hope to be are of our own motivations enough, as to identify what is prompting us to speak. Many times people will say these sort of things, because the proposition of someone new coming along with the courage to fight against something they had accepted and lived through, feels incredibly invalidating to their own life’s story.

Anyway, this is all to say that everyone has the right to assess for themselves whether their present circumstances are acceptable or not. We all have our burden to bear, along with the potential excitement and joy of our experience. When we get really preachy and forceful in our endeavors to tell others how to feel and interpret the world around them, this ends up saying so much more about ourselves than anyone else.

Ultimately, we should hope to at least have the clarity to see that we’re in this together. If we can manage to help the people who presently feel as if it’s too much to bear, then maybe, just maybe, they’ll end up finding the will to fight past our position of entrenched acceptance of the present conditions.

Either way, there’s no shame in either perspective. We get to decide for ourselves, because no one else will live out the experience of our chosen path.