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I came across a quote that said, “Gratitude is the most fleeting of human
emotions”. And there’s something
to that. When we owe gratitude
to someone, it’s usually because they did something for us they didn’t have
to do. Whether they gave us
money, assistance or advice, it was something they didn’t have to do and so,
we’re in their debt. If we aren’t in a position to reciprocate, we begin to feel guilt or at
least an uneasiness about the debt.
The easiest way to get rid of this guilt is to either forget the debt
or to rationalize that we were really owed that favor anyway and so it isn’t
an obligation we’re required to return.
Either way, our solution to the problem causes our gratitude
disappears. When I first heard the quotation, I thought about a person picking up a
cup of coffee for a coworker on the way to the office every morning. If some morning that person decided
not to pick up the coffee any more, I could easily imagine the recipient’s
reaction would be anger rather than gratitude for all the previous
coffees. Think about that from
your own experiences. Two recent local occurrences made me think of this, the eviction of people
in Santa Rosa from 149 rental houses and the residents of a local mobile home
park. In the Santa Rosa
incident, the tenants were given only 30 days to vacate from homes that all
agree were renting below market rates. Now, the 30-day timeframe wasn’t very
nice or reasonable. However, that shouldn’t take away from the fact that the
tenants had been treated well by the property owner with low rents for many
years. But that wasn’t the case. All
gratitude for the years of below market rent was instantly forgotten and the
landlord was no good. Even when
he finally extended the timeline to 90 days, he was still sued. He ended up being treated no better
than a greedy landlord would have been treated under the same circumstances.
He might as well have charged higher rents from the beginning for all the
gratitude his lower rents earned him. In the case of our local mobile home park, now Sandalwood previously
Candlewood, there is a similar situation. The original owners were very kind
people, too kind from a business point of view. They were very reluctant to raise ground rents to keep
pace with market rates and so their tenants became accustomed to paying below
market rate for their rent. New owners, as businessmen looking to make a profit, are trying to raise
rents to present market rates and are being ripped apart for their “greed and
callousness”. Little attention
is being paid to the fact that rents at Sandalwood are extremely reasonable
now only because the previous owner was a kind person. All this doesn’t eliminate the condition that both the Santa Rosa renters
and the Sandalwood residents may need these below market rents because of
limited incomes. The question of
affordable housing is a deserving but separate issue from the topic of this
piece. No gratitude is being
shown in either case for previous benefits. Perhaps Petaluma should look at mobile home parks as a part of our
affordable housing stock and financially intervene. Perhaps our City Council could even create new, city or
resident owned parks somewhere in our city. (Strange isn’t it how mobile home parks have never been
offered as affordable housing) Perhaps these instances are why many communities, businesses,
organizations and even individuals are reluctant to become involved in
helping people directly. The
good feeling that comes from helping can quickly turn sour if only a few of
those helped turn around and bite you because you didn’t do enough from their
point of view. And,
unfortunately, there will always be some who will bite. I might add the few in the Payran
area who, after $34 million being spent to help them, still insistently
demand more. This wasn’t enough, a perpetual guarantee is demanded. How fleeting is gratitude. |