Choosing to Beg

I couldn't have been more than maybe 8 years old, but I remember the incident clearly. I was at home with my family on a gloomy Saturday morning. A good friend or family paid us a visit. He worked at the time as a bank teller at NCB.

He came inside and sat on our verandah. Daddy had a seat with him and they conversed. Soon afterwards, I went outside to tell him hello. As I did so, I decided to get cute... Playing on his connection to the financing world, I said, "Gimme a money nuh!", with an angelic smile to seal the deal. Of course, I was only joking. But that didn't matter to my father. I turned around only for his disgruntled eyes to make 4 with mine. He said nothing.

Eventually our friend left, and my father immediately translated his eye-language into words- "Don't bother with the begging mentality you know! You have no reason to be begging!" "Harsh", I thought at the time. In all fairness, I was only joking (thought if I'd gotten a few dollars I wouldn't have complained...). Anyway, I brushed off the incident, and took the lesson from it- be not a begger.

It wasn't until I grew up that I truly understood why the incident bother my father so much. We do indeed grow up in a society where begging is prevalent. Whether we're begging for money, begging for 'justice', or begging for a 'bly', there just always seems to be large levels of personal dissatisfaction with reality. The problem is, however, that some people beg so much and see people beg so much that they start to believe they truly are needy.

I, on the other hand, have long and inadvertently practiced self sufficiency. I realize that I've gotten to an extreme where many times I turn down an offer for food even if I'm hungry. But i prefer to be that way than to be a constant nag to people. In my first year on university campus my next door block mate begged for cooking oil, or onions, or carrots, or some other food item EVERY DAY! Currently, my landlady's son knocks on my door at any hour of the day to beg a phone call, most the time to call one of his many women (or so he says).

And then there's the reason I felt like writing this post- a couple weeks ago I sat at the tea station in my office, having a late breakfast- tuna sandwich, I think. A female coworker approached, "So what's on the menu today?" "Tuna," I answer reluctantly. "That's too bad, I can't even beg you none cause I don't like tuna". And I thought to myself, "Why do you feel like you have to beg me any at all? Can't I just have my breakfast in peace?" She probably had her breakfast, but seeing me with mine gave her a craving for, well, whatever it was I was having.

It's just a mentality. Many don't beg because they NEED, but because they WANT, even if it means depriving the owner of something he may actually need. It's a shame. I thank my father for instilling that little lesson in me before I even knew how important it was.