I was sitting at a cafeteria in Sevilla enjoying a cafe con leche and biscocho de manzana when a beggar came up to me to ask for a cup of coffee. I watched him intently before he approached me and saw his relentless assumption that someone would eventually give in to pay the $2.30 to buy it for him. It was a simply request. Not too much. Not too vague (like a gas money request). It was specific and pointed and presumptive.
He sat across the table from me to sip his coffee. He saw the coins I had placed on the table for my waitress and asked if he could have them for a sandwich. I told him it was for the waitress who did a great job.
I asked him. “What do you do all day?” “I just wander around.” “Do you have a job?” “No. I can’t work.” “Why not?” “I am disabled.” “But you are very good as being persistent and asking people for money.” “Can I have that money for a sandwich?” “No. That’s for the waitress.” “Do you simply ask people for money all day? Is there anything you like to do?” “Yes, I just ask people for money.” “What do you like to do? Did you know you have gifts to give to the world? You have things to share with others.” At that last comment, he was clearly disturbed. Stood up and threw his cup in the trash and walked off…after he went to another table to ask for another cup of coffee.
Many people are more like this beggar than they care to admit.
Many of you reading this can fall into the temptation and rut that this beggar slipped into and couldn’t get out of. To quote the great Bono, “You’ve got to get yourself together, you got stuck in a moment that you can’t get out of it. Who says that later will be better, you got stuck in a moment…” Have you fallen into the trap that you are simply existing? You are simply paying your bills and have forgotten that you were put into the world to be a force for good and beautiful things?
Perhaps you have forgotten…or perhaps no one has ever told you…but you have a reason for existing. Have you ever considered that you are not an accident. You didn’t just spring up from the ground with no purpose. Only the strident nihilist will be willing to say you don’t have a purpose but were simply a result of millions of chain reactions. But even the most devout nihilist tries to say we have to make our own purpose. Why? That seems like a non sequitur to a happenstance life. It was Sartre who was most faithful to his worldview and said that it is meaningless. But even Sartre paid his bills, surely fell in love, tried to understand the law of cause and effect.
We can’t live in a world of no purpose and no meaning. We were created for more than that. You were created to utilize your volition to effect change in the world. You are never a passive agent. Even by sitting by as someone lies or takes advantage of someone, you are complicit in the action.
Today, you need to know that you have agency and light to bring into the world. You need to stop viewing yourself as passive and things happening to you. They are happening for you. Even further, they are happening with you. More on that on another day.
For the time being, try and see that every conversation today. Every frustration today. These are moments that are shaping you and that you have been given as opportunity to shape others.
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