I am writing a daily blog about being homeless with my family as a means of processing my emotions about this and to try and take the lessons from it. And if I help someone along the way, that will make me very happy.
I meant to write this blog yesterday but I was so spaced out from being exhausted, I wrote something that I clearly needed to express but I’m not entirely sure made sense! I’m still not sure what the purpose of it was, but it was something that came pouring out of me so I’m sure the meaning will come to me eventually!
I was journaling yesterday, just writing down some thoughts about a variety of different things when I started to think about how people view homeless people. How they look down on them very often and see them as failures. A lot of people are not homeless by choice, as I have said before. They are so through a myriad of different occurrences in their life. Poor mental health is one reason. Escaping abuse either as a child or as an adult is very often another reason. Drug and alcohol addiction still another reason. And financial problems yet another reason. When you add them all up together, I don’t see how failure really comes out of that list. No one sets out to be an addict, very often that is as a result of wanting to escape something happening in your life or something that has happened in your life. Trying to escape your mind. Yet very often society views people who are in these situations not with empathy, but with disdain. As failures in society. Rarely do they take the time to find out the cause, they just criticise.
I had an example of people criticising without taking time to find out the truth just last week. The friend we are staying with was poorly last week and I worked in his pub to keep his punters happy and keep the till ringing for him – the hospitality industry is in dire straits as many know. I heard criticism of him not being in work and even of the type of illness he had, and I heard criticism of ‘how hard can it be serving the odd pint’ without considering that, for him, a 12 hour day is the norm. These are relatively minor in comparison to the criticisms above, but it goes to show how quick we are to do it. And I started to think…on what basis are those criticisms being made?
Very often, they are based in societal expectations. The expectation that we conform to a set of rules determined by, well, who exactly? Who sets the rules as to what constitutes failure and why that is a bad thing? Because for all that we say ‘failure is a stepping stone to success’, we lambast people for ‘failing’ enough that they become too scared to try again. Take someone trying to set up their own business, if it fails very often they are criticised and seen as having somehow done something wrong rather than perhaps going through a learning curve that took guts and bravery. And often, these people go back into a corporate world, too scarred by people’s negative opinions to try again. Who are people to criticise in this way? To judge? Everybody’s journey is their own, why can’t we respect that? Why can’t we respect that people have the courage to at least try – why can’t that be celebrated rather than any problems being the thing that’s highlighted?
Who sets these rules? I was asking myself this question last week when I saw an article about changing the timings of the school day especially for teenagers, and the level of vitriol such a suggestion brought about despite the fact that it is proven that changing the starting time of school benefits learning hugely. Why are school times set as they are? Well, the start time is set against when people are expected to start work. Parents all know that the school day isn’t really conducive to a working day, but there are breakfast clubs and late stay provision built around a working day. Which got me thinking…who dictated that the working day had to be 9-5? Who said that? Some people work really well at 5am, not so well at 5pm but often, allowances aren’t made for them. They are forced to conform and criticised and judged when they struggle. When I ran departments and an economic agency, my mantra was always – do the work when best suits you because as long as it’s done, done well and the timescales are met who am I to say it has to be in proscribed hours?
We have all, in one way or another, been made to fit into our square boxes irrespective of what would really suit us. And I just keep coming back to the question in my own mind – by whom? Who has set down these societal ‘rules’ that we are all expected to live by even if they really don’t suit us? These ‘rules’ that allow those who step outside them to be judged and often ridiculed? As I said in my blog yesterday, what is wrong with ‘No Fixed Abode’? I have invariably harboured dreams of living on a canal boat and/or travelling Europe and other continents by motorhome, all unencumbered by having a ‘fixed abode’ in my country of origin. Who says that’s wrong? But there is this sense that…oh, you must have somewhere to live. Why, because the banks prefer it? So that taxes can be levied? Why? In a digital world, we certainly don’t need it for post to be sent to us when an email can suffice.
As I have made my way on this journey over the past two years, I have had more judgement poured on me than I can say. I have attempted to contort myself into the box of returning to the 9-5 repeatedly (to no avail) whilst my soul has been screaming out at me to not to. And have been judged through my failure. Interestingly mostly by people whose parents have always provided them with employment, some of whom have never applied for a job in their lives – good for them, I have no judgement of them for that. I would just like the same respect returned to me. I have been judged for pursuing my dream of writing…as if in some way this directly affects them and their life. I have been told it’s ‘ridiculous’ or ‘nonsensical’. Says who? And yes, now I am judged for being homeless. For being, as I have been told, a loser. So what? What if I am a loser? Whose life does that impact other than my own at the end of the day? Why do we judge so much? And why do we allow such judgement to impact us so much?
So, I would like to say to anyone reading this – if you see a homeless person today, don’t judge them. You have no idea what has led them to that point. If you see anyone today who you think less of, just don’t. You have not walked in their personal shoes. And if you are feeling judged by others…don’t. You are doing far better than you think you are. And please know that I am rooting for you, even if I don’t know you.
Because we are all soaring. We are all thriving. We are all successful in whatever way that means for us. And I am grateful to you all.
Louisa Simpson 