Am I A Fool?

You might have been approached by people on the street who asked for money for some reasons (e.g. to buy a ticket to go home because he lost his wallet etc.) Sometimes you might struggle whether you should give help or not. You know that if you lend the money, it's very unlikely you will get it back (you don't want to leave your contact to a person you don't know anyway). You might have seen or heard from the news that there are plenty of people who lie in order to cheat for money. Although the amount of money may not be too much, you might think you would become a fool if you are cheated by one of those. What will you do?

Imagine the person isn't a liar and we turn him down. He might panic and feel desperate. He might have missed something very important, the result of which may be very serious (e.g. he needs to go home urgently because his child is very sick etc.) In that case, we might have unknowingly done something very seriously wrong just because we decline to help. On the other hand, if the person is indeed a liar and we are cheated. It is only he who has done wrong and not us. If a person lies to cheat for money, he must be in need of money for some reasons, be they good or bad. He might need the money because he could have been out of job for long and he needs food for his family, in which case we would have done something for good sake. He might need the money desperately to buy drugs, in which case we might feel guilty as we could have helped in crimes. But to think further, if he doesn't get the money from us, he would turn to others anyway. Worse still, he might resort to other violent means like theft and robbery if he is really desperate, in which case we could instead have helped to avoid serious crimes by being cheated. We might be seen by others as being fooled, but we know we are not foolish as we know exactly what we are doing after all considerations.

Hence, don't bother too much about ourselves for being a fool. Concern more on others as in most cases our help could have made quite a difference to others. If we look to ourselves first, the matter may become an ugly one. If we look to others first, the same matter may look much brighter.