On Being There When It Counts
Every person who has struggled, and came through tough times, can point to someone who touched their lives, at a critical moment, and made a difference in their direction. Someone who saw their potential, was in a position to assist and decided to act. Sometimes that gesture was an easy one. Sometimes it requires a sacrifice. At times it was financial help. Sometimes a life-saving move. Often it was moral support or saying the right thing, or pointing out an opportunity or insisting a person understands the consequences of their current decisions.

When you listen to the stories that people tell of the saviors in their lives. It rekindles the ties that bind us together. Those people and their acts challenge the rest of us to do better. To question our own character and place in this life. To face our responsibilities to each other. They are the flip side of selfishness and isolation. They carry the risk of failure and disappointment. They often take us out of our comfort zones.

Yet at the right moment we can keep a kid with tons of potential from going bad. We can provide just enough money to keep a mother from giving up or a father from deserting his family. We might enlighten a bigot, open someone’s eyes to the value of true friendship or just keep a tortured soul from giving up on themselves. We each have that power. When we talk about providing opportunity, this is how it’s done.

It isn’t necessary to solve another person’s problems or eliminate their struggles. Difficulties, challenges, mistakes and hard times do build strength, self-worth and confidence. It’s the ability to intervene and provide support when someone has hit a hurdle they can’t overcome by themselves. It’s becoming a turning point that allows reassessment, gives space to regain purpose and re-energizes a life tumbling out of control. In our personal interactions and in the support, we give to larger collective support, we can and do change our world.

We aren’t as present in other people’s lives as we once were. We’ve huddled up in communities of like-people. Social media has us and our kids physically near us but mentally in other places. The work world is a transient place where we know less about our co-workers and want less ties to them. The depth of financial need has become an issue we need to take on together. In this kind of world the need to reach out collectively, to “be there”, with people and programs that can step up at those critical moments, are more necessary.

Our nation is conflicted about how much we should reach out, intervene and the nature of opportunity. Some of us have decided we are too generous. We need to pull back from our humanity and let people either figure it out or fail. Others would like to eliminate the struggle. Pave the way for everyone to avoid the pitfalls of their mistakes or the difficulty of their circumstances. In my mind, neither are right. There is a time to let people face up to their own issues. However, in this nation, where we have tremendous wealth and capacity, to revel in our personal success and condemn those who need help, is just plain wrong. By believing in a “punitive god”, we are laying the foundation for our own collective destruction and denying ourselves the massive contributions of those whose potential will never be realized.

It is a time for us to reassess our own role in both personal and national success. A mean nation perpetuates a mean society. We need to be there when our less fortunate neighbors have that “moment”. We need to recognize there will be many who can or will not take advantage of our actions on their behalf. But enough can and will, to make all the difference.

Ihg 10-18-2021

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