Take Pride in Living Honestly

We must take pride in honest living, even if living honestly means a humble life.

Many times we are driven by a desire for material acquisitions because we want to meet society's standards for wealth. We want to be wealthy or, at the very least to be counted among those in the professional upper middle class, and cannot countenance the thought of financial poverty. This some view as a shame, and there are those who would auction off their integrity for faster ways to make money. I say that in this life we can't all be wealthy though we may desire it, and there is no shame in honest living, even if it means living humbly.

Some people have very humbling professions and they are scorned for it, but their job is essential for the operations of our society.

There's this story I heard once about garbage collectors. As the story goes, the garbage collectors, belonging to the lowest rungs of society, were scorned. They were dirty, their nails were dirty, their hair was scruffy, their clothes were stained, and they stank. They were necessary, but no one wanted to have anything to do with them.

The garbage collectors consulted among themselves and determined that for them to be respected, they would have to wear business suits, and they formed a union and went to the city council demanding that they be allowed to wear suits on the job.

The members of the council, of course, laughed at the garbage collectors and refused to accede to their request. How could they? Suits were to be worn by respectable businessmen, and garbage collectors were scum of the Earth.

The garbage collectors left the meeting feeling disrespected. They were so peeved, in fact, they decided to strike. And so, the next day, no one collected the city's garbage. At first, the city took little notice. But then another day passed and another and no one collected the garbage. As each day passed, the city grew dirtier and dirtier. Festering bags of garbage were piled higher and higher, and there were vultures and flies and rodents and roaches everywhere.

In desperation, the city council called an emergency meeting with the representatives of the garbage collectors. Please, they begged, we will do as you ask, we will approve your suits, only please remove the garbage from our cities!

We each have a place in society, and each role held, no matter how humble, is an important one. At the heart of it, however, we must take pride in living honestly.

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When we are young, peer pressure can be daunting. And if we are not materially wealthy, we can be tempted by the material possessions that our friends have or we can be ashamed by the simple lives our families lead. As a teenager, I was ashamed of the fact that my family was financially poor. I hid this fact from my friends and many of them never knew where I lived. But as I grew older and I experienced the world more, I learned that there were far greater things to be ashamed of than a lack of money.

Living great lives on ill-gotten money is shameful.

There are politicians who build empires on lies and who steal money from the poor and the sick and the vulnerable to fund their expensive lifestyles. This is shameful.

There are criminals who run empires on narcotics and guns, their money acquired from the blood of others. This is shameful.

There are persons who call themselves religious leaders who, unfortunately, manipulate and take advantage of the vulnerable who come to them for spiritual guidance. They would damn their own souls to hell and fleece these people for their own personal gain because of their greed. This is shameful.

Yet these people may have huge houses and fancy cars and grand lives, though their souls are stained darker than the garbage collector's clothes. But because our physical eyes can only see their physical possessions and not see deeper, we do not see their shame.

Yesterday, on my way home from the mall, I spied a family walking through the streets: a woman, her son, and daughter. The family had just left a furniture store, and the woman and her son were holding two mattresses up in the air while the little girl skipped on ahead of them.

As I passed the family, I smiled in admiration, for their stride was resolute and pride in their carriage was unmistakeable. The beds weren't stolen, it was theirs. Who knows? They may have worked really hard to afford them. And so, while they may not have preferred to walk through the streets with their beds practically on their backs, they understood that there was no shame in living honestly. This is a lesson we will all do well to learn.