Why people may not help you!

[Cadence]

Originally Posted by old frog

Or perhaps they were born into money, were lucky, or by some other mechanism.

From my perspective, those that have been stranded by unreliable vehicles, walked miles to get fuel, experienced a flatted cycle or bike tire, stuck in the mud, snow, other, been aground with & in need of a tug tend, etc. tend to be more responsive to one in similar plight. Having been in many of the above predicaments and having hitch hiked, ridden & sailed a bit, I understand. while I used to jump right in, I now find with age & experience I am more wary and try to fully assess a given situation & my safety prior to assisting. Reminds me of the adage; Wisdom is the result of experience & experience is the result of bad judgment.

Well put. Maybe I was wrong, that can't happen. I thought the truly rich were more compassionate then the near do wells. In retrospect, the only truly rich I have known have clawed there way up and the near do wells had it handed to them.

[JPA Cate]

WHY PEOPLE WON'T HELP YOU:

1. Don't want to:
a. inconvenient [too expensive, time consuming, boring, potentially risky]
b. perceived as not meriting help [possible wealth issues, not having been taught to be generous, or "The Law of the Sea"]
c. possibly were never taught they should help others, no positive value put on that behavior, didn't even get the "Golden Rule"
d. don't know how to help safely
e. felt taken advantage of when helping, decided it isn't worth the effort
f. help flows the other direction, towards them, only (sense of entitlement leading to lack of empathy)
Ten pages, and this is what we have?

I don't know about the rest of you, but I like reading the stories of people helping others.

Here's one:

This happened in Mexico, about 28 yrs. ago. A low bucks yachtie who was a radio ham had wanted to have his car in La Paz, and so, he took the bus to Tijuana, crossed to San Diego, and bussed to his car. He stopped various places to acquire needed boat bits, and at the bank, to bring cash back to change into pesos as needed. Now, it's a long drive, and he stopped to stretch, and then came to his boat. The next morning, on the ham net, he got a message to call one of his ham friends from SD. The story emerged that a Mexican working man had found his wallet by the side of the road, looked through it and found some kind of ham radio club card, and started phoning those names, and reported that he had found the wallet. Wow! So our friend drove up to the place where the finder lived. All the funds were intact. Guy wouldn't accept a reward. The cash was probably more than the guy made in a year. Finally, he allowed our friend to buy some clothing for the finder's kids.

Some people have an internalized sense of honor and "correct behavior", and that finder surely did!

Ann

[boatman61]

Okay.. had my little bit of humour.. now to get serious..
I find folks pretty helpful in the main.. I get helped out all the time in a variety of ways..
Example...
Had planned on parking my bike on the street but a fellow biker in the block next door said that was a bad idea and I now share his alarmed garage parked next to his BMW..
I come back from a delivery and friends drive up to Porto to collect me rather than have me catch the Metro & train.. in spite of my protests.
When I was moving my boat and the rudder jammed.. the Sardinia CG were faffing about for ages on the VHF (Sunday) and a guy came out in his motor yacht and towed me in.. no reward/offer accepted.. he said it was great fun.
I got bailed out when busted flat in Oz by folks I did not know other than on the Web..
There's many, many more examples but it'd take pages to list.. and I am grateful to/for each and every one.
I have no complaints where people are concerned.. just hope what little I can do for people is sufficient Karma payback for all I have received.
Hell..!!! if the world was as bad as some folk make out/think.. I'd be dead in some back alley in some port somewhere in the world long before now.
But then again.. it could just be my blue eyes..

[Charlie]

While in Bonifacio, Corsica a boat with a British flag which was chartered by a German family had their anchor tangled in the chains below. I figured if we put a kedge on it we could pull the anchor back and clear it so they could be on their way. Otherwise they had to wait two nights for a diver to arrive on Monday. We tried multiple ways to get the anchor up but we couldn't raise it. My kids saw what I was planning on and both were real good swimmers so they dove down 20' and between my son and daughter were able to clear the anchor. They offered to pay us but I only accepted some beer for the kids and a tour of their boat. One thing that annoyed me is that they had already scheduled a diver to come on Monday. When I asked how to cancel it they said "Who cares?"

[JPA Cate]

Charlie,

There's that "entitlement" problem again. "Who cares," indeed!

It is the day after Christmas, and Jim and I have brought the dinghy ashore near the Hotel Gran Baja, where there is a beach where lots of cruisers come ashore. We have pulled up our dinghy. And I notice a boy about 12 yrs. old on the beach, wearing brand new basketball shoes, obviously a gift.

Two American males approach by dinghy, and one calls out, "Here, boy, take this line," and the boy turns to enter the water with his new shoes. "No," I said, "I'll take it, those are new shoes!" And so they got a hand getting ashore dry-foot. No skin off my neck, either, but boy, I felt aggroed (Ozzie for aggravated) at them. Sure can give Yanks a bad name, behaving entitled, or any other nationality. Then all the yachties get tarred with that brush.

Ann

[GILow]

Originally Posted by StuM

...(canoe stern with one heck of a prop walk!)

Swanson? Sure sounds like it to me.

[StuM]

Originally Posted by GILow

Swanson? Sure sounds like it to me.

Citation.

[rognvald]

"I have no complaints where people are concerned.. just hope what little I can do for people is sufficient Karma payback for all I have received." Boatman


This is the trademark that distinguishes those who live in Civilization and those who live in Anarchy.

[rognvald]

No science, no papers to back it up, but I agree with Mike. This is pure opinion.
I believe there are enough who have clawed their way to the top by lieing, cheating and stealing that it skews the odds, does not mean that if you have money, your an ass, however I do believe the percentage is higher. A64Pilot


This was the stereotypical mentality used by the Bolsheviks, Maoist's and Fidel to kill, subjugate and demoralize millions of people under the guise of class warfare to level the playing field. Demonizing the wealthy is patently anti-Democratic, anti-moral/ethical and leads to aggressive and counter-productive class warfare. For students of American History, it has never been part of our nation's goals and values. Good luck and safe sailing.

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by rognvald

This was the stereotypical mentality used by the Bolsheviks, Maoist's and Fidel to kill, subjugate and demoralize millions of people under the guise of class warfare to level the playing field. Demonizing the wealthy is patently anti-Democratic, anti-moral/ethical and leads to aggressive and counter-productive class warfare. For students of American History, it has never been part of our nation's goals and values. Good luck and safe sailing.

Bugga..!!!
You mean all these years I've been living under the misconception it was just so they could grab it all for themselves.. and stuff the commoners all over again..???
Viva Revolución..!!!!

[captain58sailin]

How much is enough? 1 billion,100 billion?

[boatman61]

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

How much is enough? 1 billion,100 billion?

Ask a Banker.. or Soros..

[old frog]

"Rich", "Wealthy", etc. are relitive depending upon where one is in the spectrum and the scale with which one is using. Money? Health? Family? Freedom? etc.

Originally Posted by captain58sailin

How much is enough? 1 billion,100 billion?

The same thing can be asked about watercraft. How big of a boat is enough?

Referring to the topic of this thread: "Why people may not help you!". What is help? Rebuilding someone's electrical system? Towing someone off a sandbar? Reducing to a no wake speed when passing a "smaller" boat?, or a casual comment to someone "are you sure you want to go out in that?" & causing someone to get into a situation they would best not be in?

As attorneys often opine: "It all depends".

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by rognvald

No science, no papers to back it up, but I agree with Mike. This is pure opinion.
I believe there are enough who have clawed their way to the top by lieing, cheating and stealing that it skews the odds, does not mean that if you have money, your an ass, however I do believe the percentage is higher. A64Pilot


This was the stereotypical mentality used by the Bolsheviks, Maoist's and Fidel to kill, subjugate and demoralize millions of people under the guise of class warfare to level the playing field. Demonizing the wealthy is patently anti-Democratic, anti-moral/ethical and leads to aggressive and counter-productive class warfare. For students of American History, it has never been part of our nation's goals and values. Good luck and safe sailing.

I believe their idea was all the wealthy are evil, my opinion is that there are a higher percentage of people that are unwilling to help there, certainly not all. That the percentage of people who have too high an opinion of themselves is greater.
After all, all the "great" men of the industrial era were know to be kind, right? You know Rockefeller, Carnegie, etc?
I went to a High school for one year in Chattanooga called Baylor, it was a very highly thought of Prep school, my Father wanted to give me the best education possible and I did pass the entrance exams. ( I was tricked into taking them )
My roommate was a typical child of prestige, had the best clothes, new car etc. Thought very highly of himself, he didn't think he was better than me, he knew it.
I don't know why but I was riding in his car with him and he had a flat tire, he wanted to call the auto club, but no phone near by. I said why don't we change the tire? He sarcastically asked into what? He really didn't know the car had a spare. I changed the tire, got my hands dirty and he was honestly not going to let me back into his car cause I had dirty hands.
He changed his mind after being persuaded.

Now I have met many very wealthy individuals, I have hunted with the Chairman of Coca-Cola, Alcoa aluminum and others, and every one of them was not that way, they were friendly and honestly drove Fords and Chevrolet's, not chauffeured around in Limo's.
I guess to some extent its the want to be rich people, the ones that put on "airs" I have problems with.
Wealth does not of course determine how nice a person you are, maybe the opportunity to be an ass and society lets you get away with it is there if you are?

These snots I am speaking of will see a Homeless person and get disgusted, where I look at them and think just how easily that could have been me.

[captain58sailin]

I like the physicians motto:"First do no harm." Sometimes one has to know when not to stick your oar in. Some lessons have to learned the hard way. It is difficult to know when, small kindnesses like grabbing a line when someone is trying to dock, or just raising their fender to prevent a scar on the hull. If you cannot tell when someone is taking advantage of you then you have some learning to do, if you do know and allow it anyway then that is on you.