Compromise and Generosity (R40/30days)
So we have now clocked the two week mark to be exact and it’s been a bit more grueling than the first lap. Though I find as it gets tougher I learn more and my thinking changes for the better, though some fears have started to creep up on me too. Now these fears aren’t so much to do with the whole experience but more with what happens when it’s over because, more than the concern of over spending while trying to engage with what it’s like to fall into a low income bracket, I would consider it a major fail if I revert back to the way I used to think about and use my money.
One of my best buddies is very good at writing down how much she spends everytime she purchases something so that she can keep tabs and practise wisdom in this area. I tried this for a while but soon gave up, but this whole project has forced me to do something similar; so my wallet is pregnant with slips at the moment while at the same time I’ve been keeping a log of how much of the R40 I spend each day and how much is left over at the end of each day.
Now I said I’d be honest about my failures, of which Sunday was one of them. I staggered a little over the R40 mark on Sunday because of sheer laziness and not being conscientious about noting stuff down. Truth be told though this hasn’t been my biggest struggle, compromise has. It’s been easy to stick to R40 a day when I haven’t needed anything or more likely wanted anything that day. But when I do it’s a war-zone with the voice in my head that says, you’ll only be over budget by R2 or R3 or you can take that off tomorrows amount. Some days the bargaining and negotiating is harder than others but it’s always there, mainly because I know I don’t have to do this, I’m choosing to and so if I want I can choose to opt out.
Giving into any of the reasons above would be defeating the point though, right? – Yet the temptation of compromise hangs like smog over a city. So how do I dispel it? I try to reason with myself and remind myself that those in poverty – while often not having access to basic needs also don’t have access to or the opportunity of choice to compromise on how much they spend in a day; if they only have R40 that’s simply all they have. There is no choice in whether they need or what to spend more. Bottom line, they simply can’t.
But compromise isn’t my only struggle at the moment, generosity is up there too (though I do beleive the two overlap). One of the things I felt quite strongly about when I started thinking about giving this a go was that I didn’t want to become a charity case and be a free loader; I still wanted to be able to bless people and be generous – again something that is easy to compromise on for this period. It’s easy to skimp on blessing others because you want to bless and serve yourself and it’s easy to come up with what can seem like a rational explination for doing so in the next few weeks.
Because of this I’m back and forth with questions. Is it hard to do because I think only the wealthy can be generous? If that is the case I think I still have a long way to go in learning about what being truly generous is. Does survival instinct make you selfish? Is it even right to ask that question!? How can you be selfish when you’re just trying to live from one day to the next? Does generosity look different for different people? And if so is there a guiding principle for generosity?
I’m thinking through and struggle with these questions and more as I’m bombarded with the tangibility of all of this. It seems Carryn and Dave have had some interesting interaction with these very issues so watch this space… the next post will tackle more of this generosity issue.
Feedback, opinions, commments and suggestions welcome…
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