SELFISH SEEKERS

THE SELFISH SEEKERS

It was a very hard pill to swallow when I heard that these people do nothing for free. How could it be!
It was in one of the cities in Nigeria, A driver was short of small denominations of the Nigerian currency which he desperately needed to settle one of his passengers.



Right by the side of the road were mendicants, often referred to as “beggars”. These people have their different spaces in this environment where they resume in the morning and close at night, seeking for whom to give them what they need to afford their daily bread.
This driver humbly approached one of them with a plea, “please, could you change this money for me?” “No change”, the man replied harshly. In the next second, he dipped his hand into his breast pocket to bring out different denominations and then gave it to the driver as demanded but with reduction in value.
This Mendicant removed his commission from the “transaction”.  Yes, such act has become a business for them.
I was not only surprised, but shocked and sad when the driver said “for every exchange of denomination, they remove their commission. The higher the denomination, the more reduction in value you get in return”. The act isn’t pathetic as anyone could make a business out of anything but from who and for what? The people whose every penny in their pockets is out of someone else's act of generosity and kindness! And for offering neither a service nor sales!
This simply pass a message that if everyone on the street were like this man, many Nigerians would die of hunger.
The message of charity, kindness, generosity and love is not only to the rich and wealthy. "A selfish poor man will not become selfless if placed in wealth". If the poor would learn to help another poor from the little they have, a little here, a little there is enough to take a wise man out of penury. "Many who seek for the help of the selfless are silently selfish".
As I would love to pocket my pen here, let me drop this that no act of kindness reduces you.
With the little you have, do the little you can and you would be surprised to know how much that seemingly negligible thing in your hand could go.
Lets all make our world more habitable!