When people say things in regards to other people spending money selfishly or wasting food and water for no reason, it gets them angry (which is understandable then they utter the most common phrase which irks me to no end and I WILL not be sympathetic towards it.
Here is the phrase:
There are people or children in Africa that are poor and/or starving.
I don’t like hearing that/people saying that.
You can try to get to understand and be more kinder to people who say this, but I will not because I should not.
Do you mean that it annoys you specifically that Africa is often considered a destitute nation, or does it annoy you when any country is mentioned in that context?
If so, yes it annoys me when people tell me to be grateful because there are others currently suffering, but it doesn’t matter to me which country gets named. I know I’ve got it good compared to many, but I’m not that secure from homelessness myself. The only thing I can do to make the world a better place is to write books about how to fix things in ways that don’t sound didactic, and I’m trying my best with that. What else can I do? The numbers of people suffering out there is way too overwhelming! (ﾉД`)ヽ (ﾉД｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡
It bothers me that people see Africa as a giant nation where EVERYONE IS poor, homeless, and struggling to the worst degree and their government is the epitome of absolute garbage.
Poverty is everywhere regardless of what nation it is. Yet when it comes to Africa, people assume that every single African is poor as hell.
Like, how do people not get that Africa is a continent WITH countries and is NOT a country itself?
That’s another thing that pisses me off. People not allowing people to be entitled to their feelings.
Like, yeah someone is suffering worst than and I should be grateful or someone is doing terrible, but still puts a smile on their face, but I shouldn’t be allow to get upset or angry when something is bothering me.
Why should I grin and bear it because someone I dealing with their problems and is doing worst than me?
I don’t get why me and other people are allowed to be strong about certain things because we have it all thanks to whatever country we live in while other don’t.
People are weird like that.
And you are right because there aren’t much you can do.
This angle works better for those who aren’t struggling so hard.
The parts that annoy me more is where its highly misapplied and neither party knows the details:
As charity workers, Ive seen moee charity here abused than I ever had in a 3rd world nation–and thats with “I’m a prince in Nigeria” emails. Also, when I can donate to a cause, the money usually goes fuether in a 3rd world nation than here, too. Its feasible for me to fund building a well in Africa while its a mess to try to help anyone in Flint, Michigan.
So, bluntly, I often can help more people by not helping my neighbors, but helping those actoss the globe.
I get where the intentions come from because there is some reality to it.
All that being said, what does my leaving food on my plate do for someone in Africa? Me eating my own meals only gets me fatter. Thats not me being grateful, that’s me being lead into gluttony by the excuse of the starved half a world away. If I want to tie my food (pr anyone’s) into feeding someone in the 3rd world, I need to not buy a meal or two a week and fast, to fund another: for one, fasting in moderation is healthy. Its not starving yourself. Second, you’re not changing your budget.
Third, anyone who brings up Africa and hasn’t funded help in africa is usuing a blind excuse that exposes their own stinginess. One entitled person telling another entitled person that they are greedy is a joke.
Finally, it does no good telling someone who is struggling that they need to make better decisions without shoeing them where those decisions need to be made, and you can’t do that from a casual conversation about starving kids in Africa.
That’s not even a first interaction conversation. Sometomes you give help to people who you know could do better because it is better to have mercy than justice.
But could people be told that they could be doing better with waht they have? There’s always room for sacrifices and change. But in some cases, where peiple are at high risk of losing stability, its going to be a real sacrifice and not acknowledging that is where this whole thing famls apart: do you want them to sacrifi e so you dont have to deal with them? Do you want them to make efforts in which you will help? Are they your responsibility that youre goj g to be upendong their life with your demands in the first place?
People just butt in where there is no relationshop or examples of better.
It’s a really stock parent phrase. You can tell the age of a work based on if the mom says if there are people starving in Africa or people starving in China.
There’s people starving in the US, too, but that never seems to be as important.
Its jsut a more balanced approach from experience. It certainly doesnt make me the greatest person.
The basics really are that tough love without supoort is just bullying. Tough kove with clear support is the carrot and stick nethod. Rewards and punishment. People dont tend to unserstand the level of dedication it takes to help someone change their liives.
And even then, that doesnt work if the person in question isnt willing to work on themselves. And even then, with the drive to change things from both people, who said it will always work just because both people are ready? There are things outside our control.
Besides, some people need to prioritize othee thi gs than their finances first. I mean, if depressed and you dont get that inder control, any “problem spending” is a sy.ptiom. Treating symptoms and not the cause is pallative care, not a cure.
I grew up hearing this from my parents because we were poor and didn’t have much, and so whatever my mom made, we had to eat. Or we starved because there was nothing else she could actually make that was good. Though, my mom never let us go to bed hungry—she’d force us to eat whatever she made because they’d yell at us if we didn’t eat. So, us kids learned not to be bratty and grateful.
Truthfully, I have used the phrased on my little sister when she did get bratty and ungrateful, though I wasn’t always saying “Africa,” I’d just use “in other countries.” And it eventually turned into, “There’s other kids who don’t have these things, etc.” It wasn’t until a few years after she was born where my parents started earning more money, and even though there were a few times when we didn’t have much while she was young, they did their hardest to spoil her. Now, she’s sixteen (almost seventeen) and has our parents wrapped around her little finger. She always got better stuff than we did—heck, for her sixteenth, they put her on a plane to go see my second oldest sister and to hang out at a theme park and go to cool places in Ohio. What did I get for my sixteenth? I went to Chuck E. Cheese. Granted, I did ask for it… but I didn’t have any friends and I didn’t really know what else to do—I just wanted to play games, and then with all the tickets won, I had her choose random toys or candy from the prize booth.
But the whole point was to help raise her to be a bit more sympathetic and grateful for what she has because boy, she wasn’t. She would force my mom to make her her own food if she didn’t like what dinner we were having. She would whine about not having a new backpack and clothes and shoes. She would whine about not having the latest iPhone. So, there were times when I’d used the phrase or similar to it, and even have her watch videos of people in other countries who don’t have much, or anything at all. To educate her. To let her see that she has a lot more than these people, and that she should be thankful for what she has. And thankfully, it has actually worked.
I do agree that it’s idiotic to see a continent as one country when that is far from the truth. But I think that people use it as a generalization because even though Africa has multiple countries, some kind of wealthy, some poor, others in-between… a lot of the main poverty-stricken places you see or hear of when it comes to the situation comes from Africa itself, such as Somalia and Niger. Granted, there are, of course, better places probably within these countries, but a lot of third-world countries takes place in Africa, Asia, and South America… Africa being one of the main ones many probably think of. I’ve seen videos of people in various countries in Africa who are a part of tribes who have to walk a few miles every day for water that is used for dishes, food, drinking, and bathing. Yet, in first world countries, you don’t really think about how much water you’re using. And it’s cleaner* than theirs.
And not only are these countries poor, but some of these people live in war zones which makes it even worse.
Yes, poverty is everywhere. Yes, Africa isn’t the only continent to have countries that experience extreme cases of poverty. Yes, Africa isn’t the only continent to have countries that experience horrific problems regarding its citizens and governments. Yes, there are various levels of poverty because not every poor person is in the same boat. And yes, the phrase is cringy because it is overused and some people may say it with an uneducated mindset toward it.
But I think that at the end of the day, if you’re using it or phrases like it to help show someone that they have it better than others, and that they should be grateful and not spoiled and bratty and whine about the things they don’t have, then I think it’s useful… as long as you educate yourself and those you’re telling it to for how bad these people have it. When we lived in California a few years back, you’d see tents upon tents lined up on the side of the freeway. At the time, we lived in an RV at a campground with power, water, bathrooms, showers, and internet. We were “homeless” by society’s standards, and we were poor, but my mom had a job that kept us afloat; clothes on our backs, food in our bellies, and the basic necessities taken care of and more. But when you’d get whiny and think that the world was crashing down because you couldn’t see the latest MCU movie in theaters or couldn’t go to the mall with friends, we’d think to ourselves, “There are people outside who are worse than us. People who are poor, starving, freezing, dying.” And then we’d feel a bit more grateful. It may not have been much, but it was enough.
And sometimes, I still think it to myself. What do I have to be grateful for? It keeps my privilege in check.
So, you help your sister understand that she needs to be grateful and more appreciative of the things she has without being a brat?
I can understand that to some extent. I mean it nice to be grateful of the things we have and understand that people have it much worst. Yet as people whether it makes sense or not, we are ALWAYS wanting more than we have, it feels like. I am not saying your sister is in the right for being bratty, but it does suck when you want to have things that you can’t have and wish life wasn’t so irksome in that regard. At the same time, crying constantly over how bad your life is when there are people who would kill to have the life you’re living can bother people.
Still, humans will always want more of this or more of that.
It’s weird though, because some people who say that won’t even help the struggling and poor in their OWN COUNTRY along with certain African countries.
In America, if you are poor and homeless, you only have yourself to blame. Yet in Africa or any third world country, if you’re poor and homeless, you gain more sympathy from others.
That is also true. But it’s also a human error. As humans, we are never truly satisfied. It’s why people use the phrase, “Money doesn’t buy happiness.” Because you can have all the money in the world, be as rich as Jeffery Bezos and Elon Musk, and still be unhappy, still want more in life.
This was something my sisters told me a few days ago when I was having a mental breakdown because I felt like a failure. My sister said that her therapist told her to name off ten things to be grateful for, that doesn’t seem like your life isn’t so bleak. And when I named off ten things off the top of my head, she said, “And see, these are things that others don’t have. Even though you want more in life, even though you feel like a failure, it doesn’t mean you have nothing.”
That is also why it’s important to know how much privilege you have and to be thankful for where you are. And while yes, you should help others and be sympathetic, it’s important for everyone to understand that there isn’t much else you can do. I once had someone fight with me on Wattpad about a comment I made about not wanting to work as a woman. They took it to offense and said something along the lines of, “That’s ridiculous and ungrateful considering how much hard work your ancestors did to let you have as much freedom and equality as possible to let you get to where you are today. There are women in other countries who can’t even go to school because it’s against their laws, it’s against their beliefs—women can’t be educated, women can’t be in the workforce, women can’t do sports, women can’t do this or that. Yet you can because of where you life, because of the fights your ancestors were a part of.” On one hand, I completely agree with their notion. Knowing how much sacrifice, how much sexism and inequality our ancestors dealt with, and still deal with today, is powerful and it’s a blessing to be privileged as such. But on the other hand, we live in a society where you work to survive and not actually live. What you make isn’t enough to be comfortable unless you’re lucky. And there’s still inequality within the workforce. And it shouldn’t be looked down upon if you choose to be a housewife, if you choose to be a stay-at-home parent, if you choose to retire early, if you choose to live with parents to help save money, if you choose not to work for someone else and be self-employed, if you choose to drop out of school, if you choose not to get a college degree.
Yes, I understand that I have it better off than others. But I’m not them. I don’t live where they live. I don’t have their same circumstances. And there will always be someone worse than others. The guy who lives under a bridge with only a T-shirt on his back and is barefoot has it better than the diseased orphaned thirteen year old across the country who lives in the forest in a tent with their three year old son from a rape who probably won’t make it to their next birthday, and that person has it better than the malnourished child who grew up in a basement with no education and is continuously raped and abused by their kidnapper. I mean, this can go in circles.
It’s unfortunately backwards due to a lack of education and knowledge on the subject, along with the conservative/Republican mindset that many grow up learning from their parents. I know of a Trump loving family who are poor and look down on poor people who can’t even afford food. My family was actually the type of people who asked for help, and that Trump loving family thought we were asking for hand-outs and not even helping ourselves even though my parents were busting their asses every day to look for a job, but there were plenty of hurdles to get over because employers are ass-wipes. You don’t have a college degree (despite having 30+ years of experience). You’re too old. You’re too frumpy looking. You have a family. You’re not local. You’re overqualified. You’re asking for too much money. The Trump loving family, along with anyone else with a similar mindset, were not only hypocrites but also thought you can walk into any establishment, ask for a job, and get it right there.
We had moments where we had to panhandle, and I can’t tell you how many people would yell out their car windows, “GET A JOB.” What do you think my parents were doing? They’d send out hundreds of applications all over the world. My mom had traveled to islands and across the country for interviews. She’d had people who wanted her in Russia, Alaska, private islands, Canada, Dominican Republic, Spain, and more… but something was always getting in the way… and it was usually on that list of “don’ts.”
The people who think you only have yourself to blame for being poor in a first world country are the same people who think there is nothing wrong with America and its broken systems. And unfortunately, these are the same people who keep the systems broken and ignore all problems.
You are right and that is sad.
Like how can you even change the world when it seems like changing one part of it is difficult?
I don’t agree with that notion either. Nobody asked to be placed in that situation, and the government isn’t fair in that regard. People scramble to live the American Dream and don’t even get close to it and struggle in the end. The American society is wonky as hell and it sickening to me.
That irks me. If getting a job was as easy as breathing, then EVERY SINGLE AMERICAN wouldn’t be jobless and have it “easy”.
Like people out there are tying to get a job and can’t for x amount of reasons. It’s really terrible. I’ve only have two jobs in my entire life and I can’t tell you the awful hell I went through finding a job, even with my untreated ADHD.
It really sucks.
That is a scary thought and mentality.
Not work to live but rather live to work.
