Memoir: The Homeless

Memoir Draft 1

The moment I looked out the window of the car and my eyes turned to the row of homeless people weaving its way through the traffic begging for money, I jumped out of my seat. It was my first visit to India after leaving the country for the United States. The homeless people's’ hands were making weird gestures and thumping the windows of the honking cars. I could not digest what I was seeing! While reaching out to an old woman to give her some money, I thought about what non homeless people could do to help those without a home and basic needs. Then, I asked myself a question. Why not give them something that will be with them forever and help them out of their poverty and teach them valuable skills? After all, a mountain of
cash will be gone one day and so , instead of depending on that, a person needs the capacity of being able to support themselves. After thinking about it for long, the answer hit me. The best solution to eradicate poverty is education. This thought opened my eyes to one of the world’s major problems. It changed my way of thinking and my future goals. Now, 150+ hours of community service and more than $8000 raised for charities later, I have full clarity in my goal of eliminating as much of poverty as I can. The power of helping others is just unmeasurable. I will never forget that eye opening moment of my first visit to India.
They say you don’t realize the importance of what you have till either you lose it or you see others around you going through it. Walking through this lesson was very tough for me especially during my early childhood. I was a typical child: throwing fits in stores if I wasn’t getting what I wanted, always wanting the latest and greatest, not understanding that I was lucky to have more than just the basic needs to survive.

Looking at that elderly woman as she made her way down the line of cars created a feeling of sadness in me.
She wasn’t well dressed. She had only a can in which she was collecting money and her slippers were falling apart. She was a fish taken out of the water fighting to live in the streets.

As a kid, I was never aware of any of this. When I was about 5-6 years old , just like most of the other kids my age, I would always ask for every toy I saw in a store and then have a fit about it in public when my parents said “No!”. My parents always used to tell me that I should be happy with what I have and that there were kids my age who didn’t even have shelter or proper necessities but I never listened because I was only 5 years old and really obnoxious. Later,when I got into middle school, I used to see some of my peers at school with the latest phones and other electronic gadgets. I kept asking my parents for a latest phone and didn’t listen to them when they said “no”. At last, they got tired of trying to change me and bought me the iPhone 4s which was the newest phone at that time. I felt really happy and stronger than my parents because I was getting everything my way. Little did I know at that time that I was the one that was ruining myself and that there are more than a billion people who are living in extreme poverty and many more people who are living off of just $2.50 a day while I was crying for materialistic items which are not even worth over helping those needy
people. I believe that God gave each one us two things: people and tools/materials. We are supposed to love the people and use the materialistic things but I was the total opposite meaning I loved the materialistic items and went to such an extent as arguing with my parents and throwing fit in the public. Once I realized this I started reforming myself. I became more involved in the volunteering part of the community.