The Welfare Effect

I don't help people. This doesn't mean that I won't help a drowning person or give a soldier a ride to where he wants to go. I do that type of stuff all of the time. These one-act forms of charity are great because I feel like I've done something good while the downside is nil.

On the flip side of all of this are the ones who are chronically in "need" of assistance. I meet people all of the time who can't pay their bills, are homeless, can't keep a job, are addicted to X, etc. You can't help these people because your help only makes it worse for them. If you take in a homeless person, they will remain in your house until you kick them out. If you give someone some money to get by, they will return for more.

I tend to differentiate between problems of character and problems of fate. Your house burning down is a problem of fate. Shit happens, and all of us face these things sooner or later. In the houseburning situation, I tend to want to help out. The same thing could happen to me.

OTOH, I have a cousin who is a chronic drunk and dopehead who has been in both rehab and jail. Yet, his life is still fucked up. Why? Because he is a fuckhead who gets bailed out every time he fucks up. He has never really had to endure the consequences of his actions. Even jail seems preferrable to him than having to work a 9 to 5 and be responsible.

The welfare effect is a very real phenomenon. In the process of helping someone, you also reinforce a dependence upon you as a solution to the problem. For most people, the biggest problem they have isn't tragedy or addiction but simple laziness. Even in my own life, my biggest enemy is slack. I despise it so much that I push myself into workaholism to overcome slack. But slack is an ever present force in my life sort of like gravity. (I'll have more on this in a future post.)

The bottom line is that you can't go around bailing people out of their self-inflicted problems. I am sick to the point of nausea with people decrying my lack of compassion for other people. I don't feel sorry for people, and I certainly don't expect them to feel sorry for me. And I find that the best way to help people is to never put yourself in the need of someone else's aid.

I have been in bad situations before, and I will probably be in some more again before I assume room temperature. But I have found that the answer to my problems was simple hard work. I worked myself out of the shit I was in, and I saw the help that people gave me not as a handout but as an opportunity that would not come again. And I always made a vow never to repeat those mistakes that got me into that mess in the first place.

I don't help people with problems of character, and I do everything I can to never need the help of others. I believe you should make your own way in the world, and you shouldn't let anyone guilt trip you into being the host for these goddamn parasites. You have a right to be happy, and these fuckers have a responsibility to take care of themselves.

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