Appreciate Those Around You
Back when I was around 21 years old, my best friend Joe Friendmann and I used to hang out in Downtown Detroit on Thursday nights. There were bars that were set up in old river boats, and a ton of other young college students who had grown up around Detroit would head down to these boats and meet up there. It was a lot of fun for the most part and it was always enjoyable to catch up with people I had grown up with. This was something I looked forward to each week.
Detroit has a bad reputation in many respects and it is mostly for good reasons. I remember we would generally have to park at least 100 yards from the boat, and on the walk to the boat from the car, we would generally get accosted by one beggar or another. I have always given money to beggars on the street for the most part, and when I was younger I tended to do much more of this. Sometimes I would even sit down with the beggars and interview them about their situation to see if I could give them any specific guidance.
One day we got out of the car and started walking towards the boat, and a well-dressed man in a polo shirt and khakis approached us and explained to us that he needed money to eat. I am not sure how everything developed, but I sat down with him and started talking to him in depth about his situation in detail for several hours. We never made it to the bar that night. My friend stayed with me and chatted with this poor man about his situation. What might typically have been a 15-second, or at most a 15-minute exchange, turned into a three-hour long discussion. For the first hour or so of the conversation the man drew me in with a well-crafted tale, which made it seem as if everything would be made right if the man just had $100. He was saying everything I needed to hear, to make me feel as if I should help him:
- He had grown up poor, and as an African American he had experienced racism and this explained his situation.
- He had served America as an officer in the Marine Corps, but had been unable to find a job when he got out and this explained his situation.
- He could not get a job in the auto industry or anywhere because of layoffs in the sector and this explained his situation.
- He had wanted to go to school but was forced to support his mother, because his father had taken off when he was younger; he never knew his father–and all of this explained his situation.
One after another, the man listed his various troubles, making me feel inclined to help him because of what he had been through. Eventually, I offered him a job and told him he could start work for my asphalt company in the morning. He agreed, but I realized right then and there that he was not serious about it. Deep down I realized this guy did not really want an opportunity to work for my asphalt company. In fact, he did not want to work at all. He just wanted $100. I told him I would give him an advance after the first day of his employment. He responded by telling me that that was not good enough because he needed $100 right then and there.
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