5 Days left to live. What would you do?

I am potentially at huge risk from midday, next Wednesday. If you only had 5 days left to BE, to EXIST, what would you do? 

Parents
  • Go on the holiday of a lifetime. Why worry about anything serious if I only have 5 days left? May as well enjoy them as much as I can.

    Hope all is ok? Huge risk doesn't sound good!

  • Why worry about anything serious anyway? What exactly does worry add to the situation? Just curious  ~ does it help in a way that if you didn't worry the solutions would never be found? It's just that for me, I found that if I worried about a situation, it didn't change anything and I couldn't find a solution because my head was too full of worries. So I gave it up and don't bother with it anymore. 

    And why not enjoy every day you have on this planet as we never know which one will be our last? 

    I find it curious that people would enjoy five days but not the whole of their lives! 

  • Worrying is the most pointless thing in the world. But it is not something that I can just stop. I have tried. It doesn't work. Some people may have more control over their thought processes. I do not. Trust me, if I could stop myself from worrying, I would.

    And yes it would be nice if we could enjoy every day on this planet. But I do have to think about things like mortgages and bills and other things which if I knew I only had 5 days to live, I wouldn't care about. I'd just spend all the money I wanted.

    I cannot afford to do some of the things I really want to every day of my life. I'd end up bankrupt and homeless. I will do these things at times in my life. But they will be amazing moments. I can't do them every day.

  • Never have I said I did not share these aspects of my experience of being homeless. These are simply the aspects we talk about to anybody who isn’t living on the streets. To each other, we talk about different things. We don’t do that social chit chat small talk thing that people who live in homes do, we talk about things that are real. About what is real for anyone of us at that time. 

    They showed me love and kindness at its most raw. They gave to me, when it would appear, they had very little, if nothing, to give and with absolutely no expectation of getting anything in return, in fact, it would appear I also had nothing to give. I had no drugs or money to give them or even a word of advice and I couldn’t give them love, because I didn’t even know what that was - until they showed it to me. 

    They gave me the greatest gift that any human being could ever give to another and in return, we experienced the flow of unconditional love between two hearts, between two human beings,who appeared to be at their lowest and with nothing to give, yet here they/we were, exchanging, experiencing and enjoying the gift of true love. The greatest gift of all.

    They taught me about loyalty. Kindness. How to help somebody. How to treat people. How to see the truth of who you are in the face of people kicking you and beating you and leaving you for dead. How to still have the capacity to love and help another person, despite what the masses are doing to you. How to not let go of the love and happiness that’s within you so that one day, if you’ve got nothing else to give, you can give your love and share your happiness and maybe help another soul. 

    I’ve had guys taking me home. Giving me use of their bathroom while they get their wives or partners to make me something to eat, before I go back on the streets. I have had pimps, teach me, why going on the game is not a good career choice. How the f**k would I know that? I was an undiagnosed autistic who didn’t even know how she’d landed on this f*****g weird planet full of people who I didn’t understand and who clearly didn’t understand me. 

    When all the rest of the world had let me slip through their fingers, when they couldn’t or wouldn’t and definitely didn’t, help me, these guys did. And yet according to most people, they were the scum of the earth and had nothing to give. There is more to people on the streets than it’s just cold outside. More than,  that guy just kicked the *** out of me. It’s over. Why would we talk about it? It’s a good feeling knowing it’s over! They taught me to leave it there. Not because it didn’t happen, but because how many times do you want to experience it? You can go through the emotions of it if you want at a later date, but right now, talking about it and reliving it in your head, ain’t gonna help you. 

    They taught me not only how to get by and how to survive but how to thrive. To anybody else, they might look like homeless people, but to them, they are so much more than that. That’s why we would love it if somebody would stop for a chat. There’s more to us than getting p****d  on. When that’s over, it’s over. We don’t carry it over and repeat it again and again, in our minds, so that we’re experiencing it all over again, we’re simply happy it’s over. What next. But we might tell you about it. Because how else do we tell you what our lives are like from a perspective you understand. You talk about weather. So we tell you how we’re effected by the weather. You want to know where we sleep? We don’t ask you that question. You ask us. You get to hear the parts of our experience that are relative to you, that you can understand. 

    If we started to talk about it, like I did to you, nobody would believe that we needed your help, so we have to tell it in a way that you’ll understand and so you’ll give us some of the things we need, such as food. The really precious things, such as loving kindness, sharing a laugh, giving and receiving comfort, is usually done amongst ourselves. Although some people do walk up to homeless people and give them a hug now and again and it’s greatly appreciated, even by people like me that hates human touch. 

    So I’m not saying that none of those things that homeless people talk about, didn’t happen to me, just that, that’s only one small aspect of our lives. Where we sleep is not the most important thing in our lives but it’s what a lot of people focus on. We’ve still got other things going on as well, in our lives, we don’t suddenly stop having a life just because we haven’t got a home we can call our own home. 

  • I totally not only share my experience with other homeless people, they taught me how to do it. I was an undiagnosed autistic female who didn’t have a clue what to do at the best of times, so how the hell would I know how to survive and get by on the streets? They taught me, not only how to get by and survive, but how to thrive, so that one day, I would be able to get off the streets. I owe a lot of my wisdom and understanding of life to homeless people. They looked after me and taught me how to live, to the best of my ability. 

    Life on the streets is tough. I learned to act tough even when I was petrified with fear. I learned not to go to hostels because they weren’t safe for a woman, so I didn’t go. I didn’t have a clue, I thought that was the best place for me. I learned a lot.

    I learned how to show love and kindness to other human beings when most other human beings are p*****g on you and kicking the s**t out of you, just because they can and because you’re asleep in a shop door way. They showed me love and friendship at a time in their lives when they were seen by many others as the lowest of the low, and the happiness it brought to them to be able to help me, and the happiness and love I felt by being helped by them, will stay with me forever. They taught me that no matter what your outer circumstances look like, no matter how many people look down on you, you can still share moments of immense gratitude, kindness and love which brings about a feeling of happiness that can’t be described and that nobody can take from you. 

  • I literally have no understanding over this conversation. I think I may just have to agree to disagree.

  • Yes, it's from a tabloid newspaper - and you can't always believe what you read in the papers.

    This, though, reflects the experience of people I worked with at a homeless shelter a couple of years back.

    Homeless people reveal the brutal reality of living on the streets

  • And that was my EXACT point too. We are in TOTAL agreement. My job, is to help people to SEE that truth, so they can STOP BELIEVING that thought that others are happy and they’re not. 

    You told me that just because I’ve changed my thoughts I can’t say everyone can and I merely answered with, yes I can say that. And if you read any of my posts, you will see that I regularly talk about the amount of hours, days and years I have put into changing my thoughts and at a huge cost. I have never said it’s eaay. But it is, just one decision. That’s the easy part. I decided one day that I was going to change my thinking and god knows how many years later, I did. 

    There is no ‘positive’ in Truth. Sometimes the truth is very painful indeed and it has no opposite. Positive is simply the opposite of negative, just two sides of the same coin. Truth transcends opinions. It has no opposite and no equal. It stands by itself. You might say, isn’t a non truth the opposite. But no, a non truth is simply the abscence of truth. 

  • You can live a very certain and predictable life on the streets. You can sleep in the same place at night, go to the same place for food etc, it’s not as different from living in a house as you think.

    I can't believe that you're still peddling this nonsense.  You have had an experience that many, many people who are homeless do not have.  Your safety and security is at risk, you don't know from one day to the next whether you are going to eat properly.  People freeze to death on the streets.  My father became ill living on the streets because he wasn't eating properly and was vulnerable to the elements.  You make it sound like a lifestyle choice.

    I give up.  I thought I was living on a strange planet.

Reply
  • You can live a very certain and predictable life on the streets. You can sleep in the same place at night, go to the same place for food etc, it’s not as different from living in a house as you think.

    I can't believe that you're still peddling this nonsense.  You have had an experience that many, many people who are homeless do not have.  Your safety and security is at risk, you don't know from one day to the next whether you are going to eat properly.  People freeze to death on the streets.  My father became ill living on the streets because he wasn't eating properly and was vulnerable to the elements.  You make it sound like a lifestyle choice.

    I give up.  I thought I was living on a strange planet.

Children
  • Never have I said I did not share these aspects of my experience of being homeless. These are simply the aspects we talk about to anybody who isn’t living on the streets. To each other, we talk about different things. We don’t do that social chit chat small talk thing that people who live in homes do, we talk about things that are real. About what is real for anyone of us at that time. 

    They showed me love and kindness at its most raw. They gave to me, when it would appear, they had very little, if nothing, to give and with absolutely no expectation of getting anything in return, in fact, it would appear I also had nothing to give. I had no drugs or money to give them or even a word of advice and I couldn’t give them love, because I didn’t even know what that was - until they showed it to me. 

    They gave me the greatest gift that any human being could ever give to another and in return, we experienced the flow of unconditional love between two hearts, between two human beings,who appeared to be at their lowest and with nothing to give, yet here they/we were, exchanging, experiencing and enjoying the gift of true love. The greatest gift of all.

    They taught me about loyalty. Kindness. How to help somebody. How to treat people. How to see the truth of who you are in the face of people kicking you and beating you and leaving you for dead. How to still have the capacity to love and help another person, despite what the masses are doing to you. How to not let go of the love and happiness that’s within you so that one day, if you’ve got nothing else to give, you can give your love and share your happiness and maybe help another soul. 

    I’ve had guys taking me home. Giving me use of their bathroom while they get their wives or partners to make me something to eat, before I go back on the streets. I have had pimps, teach me, why going on the game is not a good career choice. How the f**k would I know that? I was an undiagnosed autistic who didn’t even know how she’d landed on this f*****g weird planet full of people who I didn’t understand and who clearly didn’t understand me. 

    When all the rest of the world had let me slip through their fingers, when they couldn’t or wouldn’t and definitely didn’t, help me, these guys did. And yet according to most people, they were the scum of the earth and had nothing to give. There is more to people on the streets than it’s just cold outside. More than,  that guy just kicked the *** out of me. It’s over. Why would we talk about it? It’s a good feeling knowing it’s over! They taught me to leave it there. Not because it didn’t happen, but because how many times do you want to experience it? You can go through the emotions of it if you want at a later date, but right now, talking about it and reliving it in your head, ain’t gonna help you. 

    They taught me not only how to get by and how to survive but how to thrive. To anybody else, they might look like homeless people, but to them, they are so much more than that. That’s why we would love it if somebody would stop for a chat. There’s more to us than getting p****d  on. When that’s over, it’s over. We don’t carry it over and repeat it again and again, in our minds, so that we’re experiencing it all over again, we’re simply happy it’s over. What next. But we might tell you about it. Because how else do we tell you what our lives are like from a perspective you understand. You talk about weather. So we tell you how we’re effected by the weather. You want to know where we sleep? We don’t ask you that question. You ask us. You get to hear the parts of our experience that are relative to you, that you can understand. 

    If we started to talk about it, like I did to you, nobody would believe that we needed your help, so we have to tell it in a way that you’ll understand and so you’ll give us some of the things we need, such as food. The really precious things, such as loving kindness, sharing a laugh, giving and receiving comfort, is usually done amongst ourselves. Although some people do walk up to homeless people and give them a hug now and again and it’s greatly appreciated, even by people like me that hates human touch. 

    So I’m not saying that none of those things that homeless people talk about, didn’t happen to me, just that, that’s only one small aspect of our lives. Where we sleep is not the most important thing in our lives but it’s what a lot of people focus on. We’ve still got other things going on as well, in our lives, we don’t suddenly stop having a life just because we haven’t got a home we can call our own home. 

  • I totally not only share my experience with other homeless people, they taught me how to do it. I was an undiagnosed autistic female who didn’t have a clue what to do at the best of times, so how the hell would I know how to survive and get by on the streets? They taught me, not only how to get by and survive, but how to thrive, so that one day, I would be able to get off the streets. I owe a lot of my wisdom and understanding of life to homeless people. They looked after me and taught me how to live, to the best of my ability. 

    Life on the streets is tough. I learned to act tough even when I was petrified with fear. I learned not to go to hostels because they weren’t safe for a woman, so I didn’t go. I didn’t have a clue, I thought that was the best place for me. I learned a lot.

    I learned how to show love and kindness to other human beings when most other human beings are p*****g on you and kicking the s**t out of you, just because they can and because you’re asleep in a shop door way. They showed me love and friendship at a time in their lives when they were seen by many others as the lowest of the low, and the happiness it brought to them to be able to help me, and the happiness and love I felt by being helped by them, will stay with me forever. They taught me that no matter what your outer circumstances look like, no matter how many people look down on you, you can still share moments of immense gratitude, kindness and love which brings about a feeling of happiness that can’t be described and that nobody can take from you. 

  • Yes, it's from a tabloid newspaper - and you can't always believe what you read in the papers.

    This, though, reflects the experience of people I worked with at a homeless shelter a couple of years back.

    Homeless people reveal the brutal reality of living on the streets