Well now, times are a-changing, words are constantly meaning everything except what they are supposed to mean, certain colours and clothes are supposed to represent something else, certain actions are code for…well, something or another and so forth. Basically there are a whole load of unwritten rules and unspoken social conventions.
But the one I particular enjoy is the earphones/headphones one, you know, the “don’t bother me when I have earphones on” rule. I say this because well it kind of holds true for me, if I’m walking along the streets or I’m in a bus listening to my music, please don’t start striking up a conversation with me please, it…bothers me.
It bothers me more so because as a deaf person even if I were to pause the music, then take out the earphones, I still wouldn’t be able to hear you as well so I’d have to put in my hearing aids, wait for it to start up, then listen to you. Seems a lot of trouble to go to just to hear “Bit cold today isn’t it”.
No. No it actually isn’t, I find the temperature to be quite ok today.
Then we have those people that try to stop you in the streets for whatever it is they are selling and it’s always something that you don’t want and yet the stop you anyway. Whether it’s for free samples, to try out a new product or for charity when I have earphones on, I really don’t want to be disturbed, let me be in my zone.
Now, I don’t donate to charity nor do I see why I’d ever do so especially not to the ones that I get approached a lot about, I don’t feel the need to donate to charity and am not concerned with many if not all of these organisations causes. For me the money that I’d be able to contribute to any charity i.e a little, would not make me feel as if I am making a difference that I’d be personally satisfied with. I feel if I’m going to help someone it may as well be somebody that I personally know and then I can visibly see the difference I’ve made rather than nobody I’ve ever heard of. I believe I’m quite loyal to the ones I’m very close with and would choose to help those over any others that I do not know personally.
Even then I like to help myself first. It sometimes can get mistaken as selfishness and self-centeredness but in fact it’s tiring having to explain how the actions of people doesn’t matter in the long run and that you may as well do what pleases you because at the end of the day, it is your life and you are the one living it therefore you should live it for yourself. Don’t let others tell you that this is right or that that is what you should do, at the end of the day if you feel that so and so will not make you happy then don’t do it, not everyone’s perception on things are the same.
That being said, it is kind of hard to explain how in some ways everything that I do is done for myself, I seldom do selfless deeds and do what I do to make me happy because I believe in the philosophy of “How can I help others, when I’m in no position to help myself?”.
I’ve thought about things and what I’d do if I possessed the means to, I’d be buying stuff for people and the likes, I’d be buying things that they what, anything (within reason) they requested because it makes me feel good helping…now this next word is very important, certain others. I’ve wanted to buy birthday presents for people and shower my close friends with gifts and such but because I don’t have the means to do so I don’t. I still believe that even on these occasions, in some wa- no a lot of the way I’m doing it for me, I feel happy in knowing that I was the reason that someone else is happy as usually I’m used to just making people miserable and upset and they no qualms about telling me this.
Of course, this is kind of useless without actually having money to buy them things but I consider it to be something to do at a later date. In the meantime, there are other ways to make people happy such as do stuff for them, listen to them, give advice etc. I have been accused of taking the piss and taking advantage of someone’s generosity but there are two ways I see this as, the first being that I see the world as “if everyone just said what they meant, then things would run a lot smoother”, I don’t feel comfortable accepting gifts because sometimes, a gift is never a gift, sometimes I just know that at a later date they will request something of me, one that I have no way of fulfilling and will have to deny and of course the reaction is not one of happiness and things will be said such as “But I did so and so for you” or “I got you so and so” and that leads me to simply feel that they shouldn’t bring it up because if you wanted reciprocity from the gift then you should have added that stipulation when you gave it to me in the first place because then it becomes that I’m doing this in return for that gift and that really rather defeats the point of a gift…you know, something without compensation.
I also think that the ideas of reciprocity can be strangely distorted when it comes to people in that people expect the same things from someone as what they gave them. Basically I’ve experience people giving or buying me stuff (whether I ask or not) however they make the mistake of expecting the same in return which then they get in a mood and get upset even if I say no but the thing is, like I said earlier, I may not have to means to. You wouldn’t ask an elderly lady to carry your food shopping in return for helping her the other week with hers, so why ask me for money when I might not be able to give it to you? If you really want to get something in return, then it probably better to utilise my other abilities as such. I personally feel things would be easier and of more benefit to everyone if people utilised another’s strength to improve on their own weakness when it comes to the art of gift giving.
So anyway that is what I think of charity, for me it begins at home first of all and I find it annoying how people can be demonised for not contributing to charity when really maybe the person does have their own reasons for not doing so.
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