Driving home today, I passed several people standing by the side of the road holding a cardboard sign saying, “Anything helps.” Anything typically means money. Such moments have become a regular sight in the city where I live, and with it comes a familiar question: Should I stop and give them money? 

No doubt this is a question many of us have debated. Is it appropriate to hand out a few dollars through the car window? Are we helping, or are we enabling? Maybe we're easing our conscience rather than changing someone’s actual circumstances? 

The first thing to say is simple: you can do whatever you choose with your money. There is no universal moral rule that requires you to give to others or forbids you from giving. The decision to give, or not, is entirely yours, and no sense of shame needs to be attached to the latter. 

When walking The Path, the deeper question is not about rules and rule-keeping. It's about the story. Stories fundamentally shape our lives. They inform how we see ourselves and how we see others. With that in mind, we might ask: If I hand someone some money at the roadside, what story is being reinforced here? 

We do not know the full circumstances that brought someone to that moment. Even if we stopped and spoke at length, we would still only hear part of the story. All of us edit our biographies. We omit what feels shameful and highlight what feels redeeming. That is not unique to those standing with cardboard signs - it is endemic to the human condition. 

So we must be careful - careful not to assume superiority because we are inside a car and they are outside, and careful not to project our own hopes and fears onto their lives. We must never reduce a complex human story into a single narrative. 

There is also another reality present: Does giving in that moment unintentionally reinforce a narrative that this is their place, for now? Is their role to stand and ask, while ours is to drive by and dispense? These are hard words to write because compassion matters. No one wants to condemn someone in need, yet we are being asked to think beyond the moment. 

If a few dollars will not meaningfully change someone’s long-term situation, what is the purpose of the exchange? Is it relief for them, or relief for us? Maybe it’s both? 

The Path Journal exists to help us expand the stories we carry about ourselves - to imagine possibilities we may have quietly longed for but never believed were possible. That is also a position of privilege. It assumes stability, capacity for reflection, and the mental space to do the work. Not everyone has that. 

The invitation here is not to decide once and for all whether we should give or not give, but to act consciously. If we give, give freely - not from guilt, or from a desire to feel a sense of relief, but because in that moment we genuinely believe we are doing something of value. If you choose not to give, maybe consider how the way you live contributes to their life in ways that address the deeper structures that keep some in cycles of instability and poverty. That is not to guilt or shame, just to acknowledge that making a difference can be many things. 

The Path is not about abandoning our own life and giving everything away. It is about leaving the world better than we found it. Sometimes that begins with an honest look at ourselves in the mirror, while sitting at a red light. There are times when a sandwich and five dollars are not narrative reinforcement; they are simply an immediate response to human need and an expression of mercy. 

If you are interested in opening up space in your life to explore these ideas further, The Path Journal was written to help.