The Bus Culture needs a Business, Professional culture presence

Being on Line 14 is a interesting ride. It goes by an infamous place for less fortunate people... with a hotel named after a state. Quite the combination... have a name of a state, be a hotel, but houses the displaced.

The Statue of Liberty inscription could very well fit there:
“Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses, yearning to breath free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door.”

Many look down on this hotel, but maybe we should salute it as we go by because it represents the keynote invitation to  America.

I have picked up on several conversations on Line 14. One was a single mom needing a way to find money to pay for living expenses for herself and her children. A young man attending the local community college hoped to be finished soon, and was looking forward to getting a job. Another guy pointed out a CAT earth-mover that was sitting by a local convenience store being renovated. He told his riding companion that he would be driving that in two weeks. He added, “I won’t be broke no more.”  

No one likes not having money but we go after it in many different ways. It’s so much a person’s mindset. Some are retrofitting life, and others are being proactive. Some look back to where to get it from something or somebody. Others look forward to what they can do that will provide money in return for their efforts.

Panhandlers ask you for money and offer nothing in return. Someone who has no clue to who you are may ask you for money to ride the bus. I am amazed at the various price ranges for a bus fare they request... as they must think those they ask have no clue.  (Now, I have never been hit up at the terminal for money to ride the bus, although I have at other places. They really are a misrepresentation of who uses the public transit system, and give people the wrong  impression of what is going on in the bus. They create a misleading picture of the whole bus culture.)

On the other hand, a business person who wants money will offer you something of value and service to you. If it fits your need you will give him money for it, and he prices it so he has some left over above his expenses.  One person offers you nothing in return, while the other offers you something of fair value, that you desire to use.  One is retrofitting, the other proactivating.  Why is that?

From those on the bus, it is my guess two out of every three are trying... others are down on their luck as we say, and the rest may have fallen out of their high chair when little and had permanent brain damage.

I feel most are trying. What’s unfortunate is they have never been around those who live proactively. They don’t understand the principle of fair exchange. It’s not part of their developed mindset. No one has ever had influence in their lives  to show them a better way, or they lack a positive role model that would demonstrate another way. They just don’t know.
So many have molded a get-what-I-can-for-free-for-doing-nothing-in-return  mindset on how to do it.

Two different ways of thinking:
The retrofit mindset has a problem and looks for someone to blame, tries to find someone else to fix it.
Th proactive mindset has a problem and looks for an opportunity within the problem, then enlists others to participate in the opportunity with him.
The retrofit mindset... shrinks life.
The proactive mindset... keeps expanding life.

I talked to someone who once lived at the “hotel”. The way they saw it was that many there took pride in panhandling. They bragged to each other about it, and just infected more with their retrofit ideologies. Living around others who live that way,  they had a tendency to feed off of each other. On the bus and around the terminal, the retrofit mindset when together can fester like a virus.  It becomes more cemented in their lifestyle than ever. When the talk there is about  something is wrong with everything, everybody, infestation grows. It’s not proactive, solution-based thinking. They express helplessness, and show their ineptness in how to negotiate something better.  So, they just complain.

How can we break this up on the bus and in the bus culture?  I feel we need to bring the other mindset of proactive living into the mix so others see another way. Those who desire to raise the standard of the community, and have figured this out, practice it, and live proactively can change others. What is needed I feel is those in business, professions, skilled labor can serve their community well by getting in there and stir in some new ingredients to this recipe of living. If two people in business were talking to each other on the bus, the conversation would be totally different. It would be people who are problem solvers and looking for viable solutions, taking productive actions, looking at problems with a belief in a solution, enjoying themselves and having fun with life.
This would begin to rejuvenate a despairing culture. Others would hear. You are close to each other on the bus and it’s easy to over-hear conversations.

Why don’t others ride the bus who could be implants to cultivate a new culture? It may be the bad rap the panhandlers create in using the bus ride as a method to get money.  It’s a false image of what’s there. Based on what I see, it’s not as bad as some not on public transportation make it. Much can be said to justify the use of public transit, such as the lower cost of transportation, strengthening the foundations of alternative transportation, and interacting with others which could increase the quality of our community as a whole.

This last one is what is needed so urgently... bettering the community as a whole. By segregating into our own little groups we aren’t bettering of the whole. A blended culture can grow up to be a healthier culture. The bus is a natural blender.

Business people, creatives, professionals, managers, community leaders and social service agents, the retrofitted society needs your proactive vision. Just being there... so people pick up on your character, your attitude, your aura, your Spirit... just being there makes a difference. Proactive role models are needed to be around the bus culture.

When you love somebody, 
and that person thinks you are somebody,
that person will copy you.

The bus culture experience can change to vision, hope, possibilities, solutions. The culture presence can change which would lead to refreshed ideals, to changing the way of thinking. We can make impressions of positive, proactive living into the lives of those of which this is a foreign way of living.
And, then everyone will have a better bus culture experience.
The transit system needs you.  

(Note: I took liberty to recreate the word retrofit into a cultural characteristic.)