Motivation

Yesterday we worked with a traveling soup kitchen, Living Stones. We followed a group of 4 people who drive around the city of San Antonio three times a week in a truck filled with food, hygiene supplies, and clothing. All of the people who work for Living Stones are homeless themselves; their pay is free rent (a small trailer) and free food. The best part about this ministry is that those who are helping the homeless know exactly how it feels to be homeless—there isn’t that invisible wall of superiority that almost always exists in volunteering. This empathy was apparent in the way their ministry was run. Rather than trying to conserve as much as possible, they handed out as much as possible, always giving away as much as they could.

The homeless man who currently runs the program, Bill, has a bachelor’s degree and two masters degrees and yet has been homeless for the last eight years. He says his biggest problem is he can’t convince himself that he is worth it—worth getting out of bed to earn money to spend on himself. The only job he has ever been able to hold has been this job because he can “get up in the morning knowing that he will help feed 200 people and they are worth working for.”

I’ve been thinking about his struggle with motivation. He told us forthrightly that his homelessness basically comes down to the fact that he is too lazy to make money for himself. Initially, I felt sorry for him and his lack of personal drive. ‘What a waste of an education’ I thought. The more I think about it though the more I wonder if the world would be a much better place if we had more people like Bill… Can you imagine the social ramifications if the only way people could be motivated to be productive in society would be for them to spend their entire lives serving others? If no one wanted to earn money for themselves, people would be free to spend their time and their energy serving others and changing the world. Now I did take economics in college and I do understand that this theory would also create a multitude of its own complications but for whatever its worth, I think Bill may be on to something. Unlike Bill, we don’t have to see ourselves as unworthy of the fruits of our labor, but we can see others’ needs as more worthy than our own…something that would be a significant step in our country of ‘self before others’ mentality. It is a humbling reminder to learn lessons like these from a homeless man who gives everything he has to the poor.
Kelly