We see them every day. People that have lost their jobs, income and quality of lifestyle. However, there is one thing that keeps them from recovering even when help is available.
They simply won't accept help when it is offered.
Why is that? Why would people desperate for ways to feed their family and keep their home refuse to even try to help themselves?
Certainly we understand the need to cut back and be more selective with choices and that is exactly why we developed free course programs for families, but even then they fail to act. They moan in grief over the challenges and demands of the current economy and then disappear back into the darkness of worry and depression .
I have spent hours talking to groups of people, truly excited people ready to take on the world and reverse their misfortunes only to watch them go home and sit down and do nothing further to help themselves.
They won't read new information, study ways of improving their living skills or make any effort other than asking for a loan or something for nothing. Recently I offered to personally mentor a young man who had lost literally everything he owned in an effort to improve his lifestyle and help him get back on his feet again. He walked away because the effort would just be TOO HARD for him. His last words to me were "if you really cared you'd lend me $100".
Lend him? It amazes me every time I hear someone with no income or money ask for a loan. A loan implies a return payment. How could he pay back the money?
What good would it do to give him such a small amount of money? He would have spent it in a few days and been right back in the same place again, broke and desperate. Remember the old saying "you can give a person a fish and he can eat today or you can teach him to fish and he can eat forever"?
In fact, almost every week someone I meet is asking for a loan or handout. Their total focus isn't on helping to improve their plight, but rather getting just enough money to make it through another week.
Have we given up as a nation, as a people?
Is this the time when everyone throws their hands up in despair and gives up?
I don't believe so. I still feel that we are a strong people and will continue to reach out to help my neighbors and those in need until I can no longer do such. I see a future for my children and the children of this nation.
Our children and this economy need us now more than ever. Now is the time when we should take a stand and say "no more". No more living from day to day without the ability to provide for self or family . No more watching the tears stream down the face of a father unable to find employment and provide food and shelter for his family .
There is little most of us can do about job downsizing and layoffs, company shutdowns andstate of the stock markets, but we have total control over what we choose to do as a person with a mind and a will to survive.
Jobs come and go, but life goes on. The quality of your life and lifestyle are what you choose to make it. If help is available and you turn a deaf ear it is almost criminal. It is a crime against the family unit and this nation to willingly sit and let your life disintegrate into financial ruin.
Once again I invite any person with real needs to accept our help. If you don't want our help then please seek help from those people truly willing to step forward and lend a helping hand to those in need. These people are out there if you only leave the dark hole of debt and depression long enough and open your eyes wide enough to see the opportunities that are available.
However, this requires effort on your part. There is no free ride and that holds true now more than ever. Neither I nor any other person or company is going to just step in and hand you money or do all of the work for you.
The decision is yours. Make it wisely and soon.
Mr. Gentry has taken to heart the lessons shared with him over the years by his mentors. He continues to enrich himself through sharing his knowledge and insight with others in the attempt to better society by making even the slightest positive change in his fellow man.Knowledge is worthless if it is not shared and utilized for positive direction and improvement.