^THE JOY GIVERS^
Dear beggars and the charity associations,
I have a dream. Thanks
to the sales person + beggar+ charity
person who inspired me today. Yes he is a person playing 3 roles. And to be
honest I actually see another 4th role he was playing which is what actually
inspired me. I was extremely happy and entertained! And best of all, I got
inspired. And I hope as the following idea/ plan reveals itself, you too are
inspired to make a difference with me. =D
(*you can skip these 3 paragraphs to get to my points*)
The incident was simple, simpler than you can even imagine
capturing any person’s attention. We were at a roadside stall having dinner, me
and my family, while chatting and waiting, he interrupted. As all of you would
have expected, he tried to grab our sense of sympathy to sell his toothpaste. Well
what would you have done? If I were 2 years younger, I guess I would have
naively bought his products because I honestly sympathized him. Regardless of
how worthy is he, or how pitiful he is. But after being “educated” by my
parents, they cautioned me to not be cheated and not encourage physically healthy
or fit-looking people to beg as a “profession” because this encourages social “epidemic”.
So as you would have expected, especially with my parents around, sure we will
not look into their eyes and just ignore them.
Well most of the times you could be right, and we had just
managed to ignore and won 2 passing charity person and sales person. But who
knows, the 3rd came. And mum accidentally looked into his eyes, was
mum charmed by him? I was wondering. Nope. He wasn’t charming at all. And we
didn’t plan to buy his “pitiful” story at all. I was following closely his
every single moves and emotions displayed on his face. He was obviously lying. No
doubt about that. And you won’t even believe me, there was another person who interrupted,
he stretched his hand in from behind with an RM10 bill and without even showing
his face, he went off hiding in a corner! Lol! Yes “hiding”! And yes if I didn’t
mention that, he is a beggar! And then this sales guy started saying, “oh I’m
so touched, that guy always come from behind and pass me RM 10 and treats me
food, he is such a generous person, I’m so grateful, I’m from foreign country, I
have chest problem and I can’t work, and this guy always helped me I felt like
crying. I lost count of how many times he did this.. But this is not counted la,
because I am sure to return him this bill later. Because I owe him too much..”
yes you got it, obviously he was cheating, and yes obviously he planned ahead
of it. And yes, you can see how naively his satisfaction showed on his face
despite the pitiful voice he projected..” I’m pretty sure mum is not going to
pay him but I see that he had got his deal. Why? I saw it happening. I told
mum, “mi, just give him la. It’s RM10 and I think it is okay to get the 3
toothbrushes, even though we honestly stocked more than enough and it might be
more expensive than the market rate.” You can see how he took pleasure of the
trick he used, and he totally believed his idea was brilliant! So funny! I could
have told him off on the spot and let him down. But I honestly took pleasure
and was entertained by that little amusement too! How happy you can be by making another person happy! So sweet! After
that we were leaving and on the way back to home, I started telling my family
how I totally noticed their loopholes. They were not angry but amused! We laughed
it off and were happy about it. Especially for mum, she felt great about “teaching”
that guy to work in some other lines and not direct sales. Obviously again, he’s
not gonna change, especially having seen how he took pleasure from his little
trick. Mum has no idea she wasn’t gonna change him that way and on the contrary
could possibly encourage him to do more. How amusing..
As I continued to think about that naïve trick and the amusing scenes, suddenly something struck me! An
idea came by! And I actually believed it is brilliant!!
*
So here’s the deal. Dear charity associations, isn’t it
super hard for you to generate funds from the public? Isn’t it harder for you
ask volunteers to help generate funds for you? And hadn’t you known how many
shrewd people are ruining your benevolent idea of seeking funds from the public
by cheating? Especially using your benevolent idea to do so. And who are these
people? How pathetic. They not only ruined their own image, they also damage the
goodwill of charity work. Perhaps you had considered helping the beggars and
the needy by asking the healthier beggars to help raise funds by providing them
shelter and food? Had you? I bet you had.
As for our dear beggars, don’t you feel despised doing what
you do? Is begging fun? Is it worth begging for a living when you could have
opted something else? After all how much do you earn from begging? Don’t you
also have to work extremely hard begging to just get a few Ringgits a day? Or
do you not feel embarrassed at all? Perhaps you love begging more than facing a
mean boss nagging at you or carrying boxes day and night and not being
appreciated at all!
So are you thinking
along the line I am now thinking? The charity associations need volunteers to
help raise funds. The fund raisers who walk on street to solicit funds need to
have extreme patience to endure rejections. At the same time the charity
associations do not discriminate any people but are willing to help every needy
people, right? So the charity associations are ready to help the beggars for
the better as well. From the other point, the
beggars are CAPABLE of enduring REJECTIONS and WILLING to beg. Do you
capture my vision now?
Add a little flavor into the ingredients we have now. Humor and entertainment added into the
charity association and the beggars. What is the mixture we have just
discovered? An amazing opportunity to save
the beggars and save lives! How?
1st, the charity associations should arrange with the mass
media to have a national search for humor talents, jokers and clowns who are
voluntary and willing to be a part of the society who dare to make a difference!
These talented jokers and humorous charismas will plan together many workshops
to do simple tricks to amuse people! Yes, as more jokers and humorous
personalities come together, the better ideas are shared (the more
intelligently humorous their acts can be!). As I said, ideas breed ideas! In addition to that, I think charity workers
should plan motivational seminars and
sharing sessions to help these talents share their ups and downs and continually
motivate them to help and share humor with others as their passion!
What comes next? These
talented volunteers will start a nationwide search for beggars from all corners
of the society, amuse them. Yes I mean it, in their entire life, you could be the 1 and only person ever to make
them smile and more amazingly ever, made
them laugh for the first ever time in their begging life! You will be
surprised, I guarantee you they will be inspired and amused and love
to be like you! Then it’s time you bring them back to the charity
organization and provide them the shelter and food.
Do you see the bigger
picture now? Host a series of workshops to inspire each other, but now you are
not just sharing with jokers and clowns, but include ex-beggars! Time for a
change! No more labeling of “beggars”;
now we call these “professionals” – “THE JOY GIVERS”!!
We all have seen artistic people making a living on the
streets in foreign country by requesting for tips, and we can’t ignore the fact
that they are enjoying every bits of their personally chosen life of selling
their skills on the streets to passers, why can’t we make a difference by nationwide calling?! Impress the foreigners that Malaysia is
even more ready than anyone to change into a genuinely benevolent society and
yet amazingly entrepreneurial nation!
It’s definitely not hard to do this. How much do the
government and corporate companies have to sponsor
these could-be potential “JOY GIVERS”?
The corporations can collectively
produce thousands f Charity T-shirt with their corporate logos printed on them,
and collaborate with the government and the mass media to give a public announcement
of this charity act so the public is aware of it and together positively
embrace this trend!
Before I end on this, I would love to give credits also to
the multi level marketing and direct sales companies’ ideas of sharing and working together instead of competing with each
other, which definitely inspired me along this way. I’m not associated with
any direct sales or multi level marketing companies, not planning to either but
I definitely respect them for their genuine hard work and willingness to endure
hardship that inspired me. To underscore the amazing power of their profit
sharing idea, I am humbly inviting any genuine Actuarist who shares our big
visions to join our business ideas and help us generate this amazing profit
sharing plan that could work wonders for the coming talents.
With a little genuine effort to make a difference, our world
can really become an ideal place to live in, not just a better place to live
in.
chrisshee@yahoo.com
