It felt like a déjà vu day yesterday as a similar past event occurred in regards to a person asking for money from her friends for a gambling debt. In fact, it was the exact same person that I posted about a little over a year ago in regards to lending money to people when it comes to self-inflicting gambling debts. The story was pretty similar and once again she was denied.
In my opinion, this is a classic example on how just giving people money who are bad or irresponsible with it in the first place isn’t going to solve the problem in the long run as there is a bigger aspect in their life that they need to deal with first. Speaking for myself, I’ve had my fair share of simply giving people money who say that they desperately need it as a result of doing something dumb such as spending so much on non essentials that they don’t have anything left for the true important things. I can honestly say in every case the person never got better and they simply kept pestering the people they knew for more.
I think it comes down to mostly respecting and truly appreciating what you already have and is what I try to tell people who ask for help. With that mentality you are less likely to make impulsive decisions based simply on your urges that could impact you in an extremely negative way. I guess I can use the lottery as an example, which many people participate in. If you are for the most part positive about your life then playing the lottery can be one of those why not type of things where if you win then great. However, if you played it because you think your life is the pits and that this will give you everything that you need to be happy you are just setting yourself up for failure and disappointment in more ways than one.
From my experience, aiding a person with financial difficulties in that type of way is a lot more effective in the long run as once they change their attitude they will change their outcome as well.