Everyone Needs a Cheerleader
For one of our last class readings, we read “Hand to Mouth” by Linda Tirado which basically described the hardships that poor people have to endure in their day to day lives. What really resonated with me was the idea that service workers might be “sullen” or “rude” not because they do not want to help you, but because they have had a really rough day already. So my take away from the whole article is that I believe everyone in life needs a cheerleader. Everyone needs someone in their corner pushing them everyday letting them know that they can do it. One of Linda’s core themes that she kept coming back to was that people look down on the poor and treat them harshly because they think the poor is inferior. But with someone supporting the poor, not necessarily sugar coating their situation, but just rooting for them, then I believe they would have more motivation to pick themselves up by their bootstraps and make more of their day and actually find pleasure in their lives. So I’ve created a challenge for myself and hope you will join with me; the next time you go to Walmart, McDonald’s, Target, Stop and Shop etc, I encourage you to ask at least one worker genuinely how their day has been, and be as nice and sincere as humanly possible. You never know, that little conversation might change that person’s life.