Sunday, November 02, 2008

Tough Love

 
I recently finished reading the book Eat, Pray, Love. It was an OK book - I enjoyed reading about the different cultures the author lived in during the course of a year. My world and faith views are very different from the authors, but I can appreciate the culture in the book.

Spoiler Alert:

The reason for this post is there was a part in the book that really got me to thinking... While the author was in Bali she befriends a woman and her daughter. The woman is a healer, but is divorced which leads to her being very poor. She has to move every couple of months, which makes it difficult for her business and her young daughter.

The author gets this great idea to raise money for this woman so that she can buy a home for herself and her daughter. The author emails all of her friends, all over the world and asks them to donate to this cause in lieu of a birthday present for the author. She ends up raising $18,000 USD. This is an astounding amount to a person in a poor country such as Bali.


When the author tells the Balinese woman the good news, the woman is shocked. They work out everything, the money is wired to this poor woman's account and she begins to look for land to build a home.


After the course of several weeks, the woman seems to be dragging her feet about purchasing land - there always seems to be a reason not to buy. The author is getting nervous as she is getting ready to leave the country.


Finally, towards the end, the woman comes to the author and tells her she has found the right property, but that (for various reasons) she needs more money to buy more land so that she can not only build a house, but also a hotel...


The author is furious and goes home and consults with another expat. Her expat friend tells her that this is the way of the Balinese - if you give them something, while they are grateful, they are also so poor that they will try to get more from you. They don't realize that they are using you, they just see you as a beneficiary who can get them more. The only way around this is through tough love.


The next day, the author went back to the woman and told her (a lie) that if she did not purchase land in the next few days, that the author's friends who donated the money would be very angry and she would have to take the money back.
This is not actually possible since the money is in the Balinese woman's account already, but this woman does not understand this.

That very day, the Balinese woman goes out and purchases a property and starts building a house and the relationship between the two women stays intact.


The reason I find this story intriguing is that as often as we want to help people, it is not any good to just give money or things. We have to teach along the way. We have to lend support and encouragement. It is like the old adage:
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day, but teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.

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