What Does Work Mean to You? Part 2

In the last post, I wrote about the Rose Lady, who in my opinion was a panhandler pretending to be an entrepreneur.

In that post, I also mentioned another panhandler with whom I had a conversation at a restaurant where I was working as a balloon artist. Carlos and his wife Sunshine “hang out” at a busy intersection near that restaurant. They don’t pretend to be offering anything of value to the passerby. They’re simply looking for a handout.

Last week as I walked into the restaurant, Carlos and Sunshine were “cooling off” inside the restaurant. The manager is nice enough to let them do that. They sit at a corner table and count their daily “income”

As I walked in, Carlos asked me what I did besides twisting balloons. I don’t know why people think that being an artist is not a real way to make a living. I told him that what I do on a part time basis, creates sufficient income to help support my family.

He wanted to know if it was difficult to learn. I offered to teach it to him if he was interested. He then told me that currently he and his wife together make between $85 and $100 per day. The hotel charges $55 per day and comes with a wide screen HD TV. They have enough left over to pay for groceries, rent a movie and play Guitar Hero at the restaurant once in a while. He wasn’t really looking for anything else, he was just curious.

That last line struck me strange. You see, Carlos is not looking at panhandling as being loathful, to him, it is work. He works everyday. Sometimes four hours a day, sometimes more. But he knows how much he needs to make to live on. He treats it as a business, and he enjoys his life.

My first reaction was that of indignation. How pitiful? I would never lower myself to that level. But, then I realized, I am not him and I can only judge him from my perspective. This is no different than the reaction of some of the people I know, toward my work as a balloon artist.

As a matter of fact, some of the well to do people within my community have even offered me a real job, which, of course, I had to decline with a smile. I like being Joyfully Jobless and  they weren’t even offering me more money to let go of my joy and my freedom.

I said in my last post that there was an interesting contrast between the Rose Lady and Carlos. Do you see it, or is it just me?

As I see it, the Rose Lady lacked authenticity. She was asking for a handout under the pretense of honest labor where as Carlos is putting out honest labor and doesn’t pretend that he is not panhandling.

I would love to hear opinions on the issue and my interpretation of it.

P.S. I went by to grab a picture of Carlos and Sunshine for the blog post, but they weren’t at the corner, so I went in to the restaurant to look for them. The manager told me that they have moved to some other corner, because they weren’t making the money at that corner anymore.

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Photo Credit: Michael Amsler