Do you appreciate what you have?
By glblguy
My teenage son came home the other day. He told his Mom and me that he needed some precooked pasta, zip lock bags, bread and some butter. “Huh? What do you need that for? Are you going to cook dinner??” we asked snickering a little. He calmly replied, “Yes for the homeless shelter downtown on Wednesday night.” We stopped snickering.
He told us that he volunteered with some other students from his school to prepare dinner at our local homeless shelter. We weren’t surprised, he always has been one to help others and wants to make a positive difference in people’s lives. He’s a natural leader and it shows in everything he does. I thought I’d share his story and the 3 lessons that him, my wife and I learned through his volunteer effort.
Lesson 1: Food is more expensive than he thought – especially when you are paying for it
Tuesday evening, we stopped off at the grocery store on the way home and picked up the supplies he needed. He paid for them out of his own pocket. He made it very clear that he wanted to pay for the supplies, not us. In doing so, he learned the first lesson: Grocery’s are expensive. Even though what he bought was very inexpensive (less than $13.00), it was expensive to him. I could see him doing the math in his head. He was calculating how much food must cost each day for us. A few seconds later he looks at me and says “Wow Dad, you and mom must spend a lot of money on food each month huh?”.
Now, the interesting thing is that I’ve told him before how much our food budget is: $1,100/month. So this was no surprise. I think the difference was that he paid for it using his own money. The $13.00 for dinner wasn’t just some number that floated in the air and was gone a few seconds later, but it was a number that hit him dead square in the pocket. It was a nights babysitting money for him. He not only heard it, he not only understood it, but he felt it.
That was my lesson, feeling it. Every financial lesson I learned, I learned because I felt it. The feeling of joy when seeing my 401k money grow taught me to contribute more. The feeling of hopelessness as I watched my credit card balance grow even though I was making payments taught me to never ever carry a balance again. The feeling of anger when at the end of the month I couldn’t pay a bill because I had carelessly spent all of the money on things I didn’t need. Learning about money and how we handle it, like many things, is all about feelings. Good feelings and bad feelings drive us in what we do and the choices we make.
Lesson 2: He likes to cook!
I arrived home around 5:30 on Wednesday evening and smelled boiling pasta. Being a complete pasta addict, I can smell pasta cooking a mile away. I walked into the kitchen, the pot boiling and my son standing beside it stirring away with a big smile on his face. “Check this out Dad, I’m cooking!” He seemed to really be enjoying himself. He was really excited he was actually cooking something and began to tell my wife and I how he felt confident he could cook a really good meal now and that he was really enjoying it”. It was funny, as cooking a meal and boiling some pasta are two very different things, but hey it was a start.
My wife has tried to get him interested in cooking before. He always acted like we were completely inconveniencing him and he never got into. Not sure what was different about this time, but he’s suddenly developed an interest in helping my wife cook and learning how to cook a few basic dishes. I would have never guessed he’d be interested, but I’m not complaining.
Lesson 3: We were all reminded that not everyone lives like us
Wednesday evening is traditionally date night for my wife and I. We’ve considerably cut our expenses over the past two years, but through all the cuts we hung onto our weekly date night. It’s an evening we look forward to. We love our 6 children dearly, but having an hour or two together one night a week we’ve found is very important. More important than the money saved. We decided to grab some dinner at a restaurant not too far from the shelter while my son did his volunteer work.
We headed out to the shelter around 6:30 and having never been there before, had a little trouble finding it. We eventually found our way. My son was supposed to be there by 6:45 as the shelter opened for the evening at 7:00pm. We were right on time. We had never been to this part of town. The houses were neat, but fairly old. Some were very run down, while others fairly nice considering. Most of the vehicles we saw were older less expensive model and generally not in very good condition. The people walking the streets looked poor and some even unhealthy. It was clearly obvious to us that this was a side of town very different than our own. What my son would learn that evening is that they may be poor in money, but were rich in spirit.
The students would be making spaghetti and garlic bread for the homeless in our small suburban town. As we pulled in, a few of the inhabitants for the evening were already waiting outside. We walked him in and a few students were already inside. He was greeted by a few friends, and immediately went to the kitchen. We walked out and within just the few minutes we were inside, the line outside had doubled. We got into my Eddie Bauer edition Expedition and drove off. I felt uncomfortable. Even though my vehicle only cost $5,500, it was much nicer than most around us. I felt guilty and felt bad that not everyone could have what we had.
As we ate dinner at the Lone Star steakhouse (which wasn’t very good by the way – we won’t be back) we talked about how, as we sat there eating a steak dinner, our son was feeding the homeless in our area a spaghetti dinner. It humbled us greatly and made us appreciate each bite and the job that I had that provided it. Sometimes it’s easy to forget how much we have. We often think we live a fairly humble and simple life compared to many that we know. Visiting the shelter reminded us that we live a life of luxury compared to many. It’s nice to be reminded of that sometimes.
The last time we were reminded of this was during our trip to Guatemala to bring our adopted daughter home. My son (then 11) and his younger brother (then 9) gave their Nintendo Gameboys to one of the men we befriended at the hotel. His 2 boys had wanted them for Christmas, but he couldn’t afford them. Without much thought at all, our boys gave him theirs to give to his children along with all of their games. Doing this was their idea. The man cried, we cried, our boys cried…It was incredibly emotional but rewarding experience.
We picked our son up at 8:00 as scheduled, and many of the shelters visitors for the evening had finished dinner and migrated to the sleeping area. As we drove home, my son told us how they had prepared and served the meal to the various homeless. All together around 20 people came and received a meal that evening all of them staying for the night as well. Our son proudly told us how he had tried to be social and both meet and talk to the various people having dinner. He was surprised at how nice and interesting the people were. They enjoyed talking to him and sharing stories with him. Then his eyes glazed up some as he told us of mother and her two children that came in to stay that evening. He had played with the kids and told us “I tried to play with the kids for a while and make them smile, at least for a few minutes. Mom, Dad…they looked so sad.” His story was heartbreaking, but my heart filled with pride. I sometimes wonder if we are doing a very good job raising him. When he shared this story, I knew we were right on track. He is such a good kid.
A few days later he told me that he still couldn’t stop thinking about them and that as he lay in bed each night, wondering if they were at the shelter or sleeping in the street somewhere. He said that he prayed for them each night. I told him how proud I was of him and that the memories of those children will keep him humble, contain his pride and ego and serve as a constant reminder to him of how he should appreciate everything around him.
Appreciate what you have
Regardless of where you are financially, how small your home may be, how much debt you may have, or how behind on your payments you might be don’t ever forget one thing: Someone, somewhere has it worse than you. Chances are, someone, somewhere has it far far worse than you. Maybe you are 3 months behind on your mortgage. Someone lost theirs today. Maybe you owe $20,000 in credit card debt. Someone owes $50,000. Maybe you had to eat macaroni and cheese for dinner as it was all you could afford. Someone didn’t eat dinner at all tonight.
As we here in America potentially enter probably one of the most scary and trying financial times since the great depression, don’t forget to appreciate what you have. Thank God for what he has provided you each and every day. It’s so easy to get caught up in our own life and forget how good we really have it compared to others in this world. There are people in countries around the world that have been living in times far worse and for far longer.
Need a reminder? Head to your local homeless shelter, orphanage, hospital, or safe house and volunteer. I promise, it will due the trick.
Photo by: Franco Folini
Do you appreciate what you have? Ever take things for granted? Share your story and thoughts. Add a comment!
October 1st, 2008 at 7:49 am
Wonderful experience your son had.Thanks for sharing it. Please pass on to him our appreciation for what he did. He has a big heart. Great job on raising him. :D
October 1st, 2008 at 8:20 am
Thansk for sharing…your son is so lucky that he could learn those lessons early. Like you said, you shared your food budget and tried to teach him to cook…but it took his own interest to really learn. I hope when my sons are teenagers that they will do the same.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:17 am
Great post Gibble. Congratulations on raising him right! Too many times, it’s easy as parents to just give up when they reach those hardheaded teenage years.
My wife usually takes the kids to the Salvation Army to work during Thanksgiving and Christmas. They will put in a full day and they’re beat when they get home that night, but each of them, even my 8 year old son, has story after story about what he saw and how it caused him to be more grateful.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:23 am
Wow, you’ve got a fine young man there, Gibble. You’ve obviously done a great job instilling the virtue of being a giver, something few people these days are interested in being. My guess is that your kids will take these profound lessons into adulthood and pass them on to their kids. That’s a pretty cool legacy when you think about it.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:06 am
Great post. It’s wonderful that your son has such a generous and caring spirit and is willing to help others.
My mother works in a public school. She was just talking about how the kids at school who qualify for the free lunch program eat every single bite of food on their plates, while a lot of other kids throw away food. It makes me so sad because you know the only real meal those kids probably get is at school, and they’re ravenous by the time lunch rolls around every day.
October 1st, 2008 at 10:10 am
Beautiful. Thank you. Thank your son.
October 1st, 2008 at 11:24 am
What a great kid! I wish more kids did this.
Be sure though to teach him to not feel GUILTY for what he has. Feeling guilt just because your life is “better” off financial is not healthy. Appreciating what you have is very healthy though. =) There will ALWAYS be someone suffering in the world and feeling guilty about it will not change that fact.
It’s wonderful that he learned how to appreciate the cost of food too. I’m sure that lesson will stick with him as well.
October 1st, 2008 at 1:26 pm
Makes me think that of the saying that you need courage to change things, and serenity to accept the things that you cannot change. castocreations is right that your son shouldn’t feel guilty for being really quite wealthy, we should all do what we can to help, and accept that it still might not be enough.
October 1st, 2008 at 9:26 pm
Thank you every one. I think I’ll keep him ;-)
October 1st, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Your son sounds like quite the young man. Excellent post, too. I really needed it tonight – I had a super-crummy day at work and had to deal with a lot of stressful stuff this afternoon. After reading this, I was reminded that even though my day was really tough, I still have it pretty good. Thank you for that reminder.
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:57 am
Please please please read this and sort out ‘wife and me’ vs ‘wife and I’
http://www.elearnenglishlanguage.com/difficulties/ime.html
October 2nd, 2008 at 5:29 am
@InDebtToo – Thanks, I learned something. In return, I would suggest you read http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/tact.
@Everyone – As I proofed the article again looking for I vs we errors I found a number of typos. My apologies. I’m really bad at not being able to see these kinds of things right after I write the article. I can’t see the forest for the trees I guess. This article was particularly full of them too!
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:04 am
YAY! They got your site back up!
Thanks so much for sharing your family’s stories, day after day. I know that they impact a lot of people.
October 2nd, 2008 at 7:13 am
@Momma – Seems they’ve (Dreamhost) has been having problems with the file server this site is hosted on. They completely replaced the hardware yesterday so it should fix the problem. The folks at Dreamhost are great!
October 2nd, 2008 at 9:44 am
It’s easy for anyone regardless of age get wrapped up in the ‘me’ mentality of our society, and it’s great that your son is helping out in his own way. As a young person, (I’m 21) I’ve encountered stereotypes that teenagers and 20-somethings only care about their ipods, pop culture, and the next ‘hawt’ thing when that’s really not the case. Thanks for sharing this touching story of your son.
October 2nd, 2008 at 4:06 pm
What a wonderful heart. Great kid! :)
October 3rd, 2008 at 3:53 pm
I apolgise for embarrassing you with my previous comment. If there had been a way for me to leave a private comment I would have.
October 5th, 2008 at 4:37 pm
What a great son! I learned a long time ago how much I’ve had. I had to volunteer with my mom growing up at a woman’s shelter where she would volunteer with abused women. I used to look at them and compare their lives to mine and my mom’s. Yes she was a single parent but we had a house, she had a stable job, we had medical, vision, dental insurance, new clothes, and good food.
My mom did that to teach me how much I had. Today I volunteer once a month at a food bank to take in food for those less fortunate than me and at a woman’s shelter because I think of my mom and I together alone.
This weekend I recall why I appreciate what I had.
July 23rd, 2011 at 6:45 pm
What a great article. I had to read aloud to my wife of your sons experience of learning how much food costs. There are so many things we can teach our kids, your article pretty much pointed out your experience of your son learning them. Thank you for the reminder and bringing out the joy in rasing my own children with values that matter.
January 5th, 2014 at 5:21 pm
Would the truly homeless actually work for their food if it were not so easily provided for by the generous ???