A prison of their own making

Recently, a friend described someone of her acquaintance, a 24-year-old woman living with her boyfriend. She's able-bodied but claims a disability that keeps her from working (my friend doubts this claim). In addition to welfare, she routinely visits every church in town and asks for food and rent money. Once she finishes the cycle, she starts again. After several years of this, many churches in our small town have begun turning her down.

My friend also knows this young woman's mother, who is also on "disability" while claiming public assistance. Both women are able-bodied and have a long history of astonishingly, breathtakingly complicated personal lives. Both have never worked.

After hearing this, my father – a child of the Depression who worked hard all his life – asked, "What do they DO all day?"

"They watch TV," replied my friend. "They smoke and play cards. They drink."

"That would drive me nuts," said my father. "It would be like being in prison."

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It many ways, my father is right. These people ARE in prison – a prison of their own making.

Prison is commonly characterized by bars, guards, a lack of freedom … and the hopelessness of knowing you're stuck there for anything from months to a lifetime. Many people who are in prison simply exist, marking time. They get through each day – they have no choice – but any hopes, plans and dreams are put on hold, either temporarily or forever.

So it's painful to watch when people make their own prisons and refuse to realize that they are perfectly capable of leaving the bars behind and stepping into the wider world.

There are endless types of self-imposed prisons. Some people are imprisoned by the guilt of past sins. Others are incarcerated by their passions, their addictions, or their vices. Yet others – as these two women illustrate – cannot break the bonds of their own helplessness.

When I think of all the truly disabled people who have accomplished so much – everyone from Helen Keller to Nick Vujicic (born without limbs) – it angers me to see people wasting a perfectly good life. While I admire those who overcome brutal poverty or adverse circumstances (Ben Carson, Oprah Winfrey, Andrea Bocelli), it saddens me to see people embracing their poverty with professional victimhood and refusing to help themselves. Endless millions have worked hard regardless of humble circumstances and earned the love and admiration of friends and family. They didn't create their own prisons. They were too busy.

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It also frustrates those in the helping professions (doctors, pastors, charities, social services, etc.) to see so many wasted lives. Once in a while these people lash out at those they are trained and dedicated to help – such as a pharmacist asking why we should help those who refuse to help themselves – but for the most part society continues to blindly and mindlessly give give give to people who take take take but make no contribution and no effort to change.

Please don't misunderstand, I'm not talking about people affected by things beyond their control. I'm not talking about those facing age or disabilities or medical issues or economic setbacks. We are all affected by tragedies, natural disasters and a bad economy. But a continual life-long or multi-generational string of "I can't do it" means the prison bars are in the mind.

At what point do we stop the help? At what point does charity become enabling? At what point do we realize we are merely exacerbating the problem, not solving it?

In this column, Larry Elder discusses the 1960s research by University of Pennsylvania professor Martin Seligman who developed the theory of "learned helplessness" – when a person learns to believe and act helpless when, in fact, they do have control over their own negative circumstances but fail to exercise it. "His extensive research discovered that a low 'C' – adverse circumstances like poor health or poverty – matters very little if a person has a high 'V,' a positive, optimistic outlook and a belief in himself," reports Mr. Elder.

What causes a high "V" despite a low "C"? What causes some people to rise above their adversity despite high odds, while others sink into the mire?

A Canadian columnist named Sheila Wray Gregoire referenced an author and homeless advocate named Tim Huff in a compelling column entitled "Poverty of Relationship." Mr. Huff "posited that the reason we're not curing poverty is that we don't understand it. We think we're talking about poverty of resources – people don't have enough money, or food, or stuff, and so we try to help them get more money or food or stuff … [but] in his work with the homeless, he has discovered that they suffer far less from poverty of resources than they do from poverty of relationship. When people have real community, they will weather storms like job loss or family breakdown. On the other hand, if someone has no community, then what should be a relatively minor setback can cause them to lose their home."

Ms. Gregoire continues: "The problem with attacking poverty as a money issue, Tim said, is that you're dealing with the symptom, and not the root of the problem. The real issue is that we have a breakdown of family and of community. Those with a close family and a close community are not harmed by occasional financial setbacks. Those with chaotic families are, because everybody is too busy dealing with their own issues to help you with yours."

So if we could solve the issue of "poverty of relationship," we could go a long way toward eliminating poverty and homelessness. Yet ironically the very assistance society offers is what helps create this poverty of relationship by breaking up families, discouraging fathers and encouraging out-of-wedlock children.

There is no easy answer to these issues. Those who are in a prison of their own making cannot escape until they make the choice to do so. If they have nothing to lose by staying helpless, too many people choose to stay behind bars.

Does this mean they are entitled to endless and continued multi-generational welfare? I don't know. But I do know that "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage." A self-imposed prison means the inmate is also their own judge, jury and jailer. Bailing them out time after time will never work if they continue to refuse the freedom that comes with self-responsibility.

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