I work from home and to avoid too much familiarity (or just to get out), I go out to lunch a few times a week. One place I visit is a little pizzeria in downtown Pleasant Grove. They love making pizza and do a decent job. The biggest draw for me is that the owner has passion (I’ve overheard him get after an employee when I was the only patron in the store: “You don’t care about the food! You have to care about the food!”).
They all know my name when I come in. I don’t come that often, I thought, but perhaps two or three times a month qualifies me as a regular. I’m always careful to leave a generous tip here. I don’t know how much longer the place can stay in business the way things are going with the economy (I’m often the only customer at the hour I eat), but I hope they can pull through it, and so I contribute what I can because I value what they do here.
Which brings me to my point. My grandparents lived through the Great Depression and taught their children (my parents) to be frugal, to pinch their pennies and so forth. This is a good way to live in general, I think. On the other extreme, some people are just bad consumers: they spend their money on things that have no real value because they can’t control themselves, and often later they need help.
Between those extremes is one lesson that didn’t seem to come out of the Great Depression clearly enough: those who survived, those who had employment enough to feed their families did so because other people spent their money. People who had more means hired others to work for them and paid them money. Any fool can make money by putting his head down and working, making something that other people want, but the other side of that coin is that in hard times those with money should loosen up a little bit to help those who need a break.
Yes we should save some for hard times—it’s not right to burden others with our own problems when we could have avoided it, but when people hoard, everyone gets poorer. It’s a kind of sinister selfishness that spreads quickly and quietly. It says, “As long as I have a job, I’m ok. If a local business goes down, that’s not my problem.”
The antidote to this is, in part, to remember that money is a renewable resource, and more importantly, it’s only a representation of wealth; it is not wealth in itself. People are wealth: rather, people make wealth and have an infinite capacity to do so.
If you have a little means to help a brother out, do it. Yes, you’ll be helping someone who could use it, but you’re also turning the tide of selfishness and pessimism back to generosity and optimism.