The Joy's Of Uncertainty

I use to wake up every morning and before I’d leave for work I’d always look at the news. I knew I wasn't going to see anything that was going to make me happy. But I felt it was important to develop my understanding of the world in order to be a better part of it. I would see people both locally and around the world who were stricken by poverty, not by their own decisions, but by the time and place they happen to be born. The only real difference between the kinds of people who have had to live their lives starving and freezing and myself, In my comfortable, normal, first world life, is the lives that we were born into.

I do consider myself to be a very hard worker and have been told I am a fairly Intelligent man. However due to some unfortunate circumstances, I could not choose a formal education. Society tells me I'm uneducated and therefore shouldn’t qualify for a good job. Society tells me I don’t have a good job and therefore don’t deserve the joy that is brought by money.

As bad as things may be for me at times, I know things could be a lot worse for me and are a lot worse for others. I’ve been blessed with some very kind family and friends who have helped me when I needed it. I’ve also been fortunate enough to meet people who give me the chance to explain myself before they decide giving me an opportunity is a complete waste. I am very thankful to have met these people.

But I know there are others all over the world who are as hard working, smart and kind as I try to be. But they haven't been fortunate to have other people give them opportunities to succeed. That's the only difference I see between the people I see on the news and on the street everyday,

Unequal opportunities.

I was given A first hand encounter of these opportunities when I had witnessed what a few months of homelessness had done to my own mother.

I still remember the amazing parent that my mother once was. Throughout my childhood my mother fed me, read to me, comforted me and was without a doubt the most nurturing person I have ever known. As nurturing and wonderful as my mother was, mentally she was a very vulnerable woman. This world isn't made for vulnerability, if you have any type of weakness there will always be someone who will be willing to and it against you for their own gain.

After my parents split up I think my mother fell into a great depression, she lost all sense of direction and motivation, she stopped caring about herself and I began to give into drinking and drugs. Everyone who knew her knew about her addictions, they knew the way she was behaving was endangering her children. Even though everyone knew she had a problem, nobody did anything to prevent it and a few people even saw her struggle as an opportunity. Many of these people claimed to be her friends but they took advantage of her vulnerability for their own gain. Whether it was serving her drinks with money they knew she should’ve been spending on food, acting friendly to her so they would have a free place to stay or selling her crystal meth and cocaine when it was clearer problem had spun out of control. After a few months of this her hair went from a dark brown to a sickly light brown, almost orange. Her teeth began to fall out. Her skin became more pale and every time I would see her she would have more marks up and down her arms from needles. Even though my mother was doing this to herself I knew others were enabling her. After watching my mother go through all this made me realize that when you expose your smallest vulnerabilities to the world, the world will use those vulnerabilities to tear you apart. After a few years of living this way she lost her kids, her job and eventually her home.

Once she was out on the streets it was only a matter of time until the alcohol and drugs that could be taken over her life. After she had lost her kids and knew she wouldn't be able to get them back, she had lost any will to be a mother. After she had lost her home, she had no desire to make any life improvements. After she has lost any chance of finding a job, she has completely lost her will to work. Without anything to give her life meaning, she completely lost the will to live.

Our friends and family tried everything, we took turns talking to her. We’d listen to her problems. We all did everything we could to provide her with Solutions to get her life back on track. But she was completely void of any type of ambition and it only ever got worse. Over time I think we all began to forget the type of person that she once was,

especially her. Not only that but I watched her live the life she had chosen to lead it turn her into something completely different, something I absolutely couldn't handle. I remember one particular conversation while I was asking her how she would be able to support herself? I remember her responding very vividly. “ I'll be fine, I've been told I'm pretty good it's sucking dick for money.” Hearing those words from my mother was shocking. I can promise you no child should ever have to think about their parents being in a situation like that. It wasn't just that she said that, it's how casually she said it. Like it was just a normal part of her life and something that I should just be all right with. As if that what she was living her life wasn’t completely destroying our family. That was when I knew that the woman I once knew was truly gone. I didn't stop trying to help her, I let her stay with me when she needed somewhere to stay and fed her when she went hungry. I wish I could have trusted her with money. But I couldn't dare to think about what she would do with it. Eventually we had a falling out and over the next year or so she had just faded out of my life and had become almost completely unreachable.

Why couldn't I help my mother? Maybe I wasn't capable of helping her? Maybe I just could've helped and I on some level I didn’t want to? Maybe my anger for her was finally beginning to outweigh my guilt? I thought about this a lot during work, especially since I didn't have much else to think about as I slaved away at my soulless factory job. Standing in the same place repeating the same tasks surrounded by the same people, day after day, which of course turned into month after month and then year after year. Having so much free time mentally but completely restricted physically was infuriating. Then I started to ask myself “why do I do this?” My job pollutes the planet, which I am dead against. My job makes rich people richer while I am barely paid a livable wage. Under these working conditions I was completely incapable of saving any money or enjoy my life. Most days I felt as if I was being kept me too poor enough and too busy to find something to do with my life that would make me truly happy. After a few months of thinking like this, I decided I needed to do something about it.

By Christmas eve I had quit my job, it was the most freeing experience I have had in years. No obligations to anyone no more sacrificing all my waking hours to repeating tasks and no more being undervalued and under payed. I felt as if I had been giving myself away and today I was taking my life back and doing whatever I wanted with it. But after the experiences I had with my mother there was only one thing I wanted to do.

I worry my mother may be too far gone, I'm not sure there will be anything I’ll ever be able to do for her. But there are still other people in the world who are a lot like her, good people. People that are capable of living up to their full potential if they had been fortunate enough to receive the opportunities the rest of us were given, and so many of us take for granted. But these people can be just as vulnerable as my mother was, and there will always be people who will take advantage of them whether its a drug dealer who exploits their addiction for their own profit, a bar owner who keeps you drinking knowing you have children at home or underpaying someone who works as hard as they can at their dead end job to keep the shareholders happy. I wanted to stop being a part of the problem and start being a part of the solution.

Since I left my job I've been volunteering at food banks, homeless shelters and I've been meeting and having deep and intimate conversations with people In need. I now know first hand that there is a great difference between seeing a story on the news about a person who has lost absolutely everything and actually having the opportunity to meet someone who has lost absolutely everything. I have had a lot of truly eye opening conversations. My mother never really gave me straight answer about why she was doing the things that she did. I thought she never told me because she didn't respect me enough to give me a real answer. But now I think maybe she just couldn't bring herself to tell me because it would affect the way I saw her as my parent. Listening to other less fortunate people talk to me about the things they have done, I know they would never want their children to hear these things. Over the last month I have never been more enlightened and humbled in my entire life. I'm ashamed to say that there was a time, I used to see people who were drunk or on drugs stumbling down the street and as much as I knew I shouldn't I couldn't help but judge them. Why would they do drugs? That's stupid, don’t they have any self respect? But after I've spent time with people who have succumbed to these vices, I now know that I can't imagine the pain that they experienced.

Today I am jobless, I'm falling behind on rent and all my bills, I’ve lost 15lbs due to lack of food, I’ve been judged and ridiculed by my friends and family for how irresponsible my choices are. Yet I can truly say I’m a happier person now than I ever was at my boring monotone job. I get to wake up every morning knowing that instead of watching all the suffering going on in the world, I'm going to do something about it. I get to meet with people who are suffering and are going through the worst parts of their lives and I have the opportunity to do my part to get them to become the absolute best versions of themselves. It's the most rewarding feeling I've ever had and that feeling has made life worth living for me. Society still tells me I am uneducated and don't deserve a good job, but I do consider myself educated and society to tell me what a good job is. Society tells me that because I don't have a “good job” so I don't deserve the joys money brings. But if someone thinks joy and happiness measured by money, then I truly feel sorry for them. I haven’t given a lot of thought about my future. I don't know how or when I'll be able to find another job. I don't know if I’ll ever see my mother again. I don't know if the way I’m choosing to live my life from now on will make the world a better place. I'll know for certain that I'm happy, and that's all I’ve ever wanted.