The title phrase means that when you can’t have exactly what you want, you should be satisfied with whatever you are given. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the phrase “Beggars are not choosers” means that people who need something should be satisfied with what they get even if it is not exactly what they wanted.
Beggars are not choosers as they can only put forward their demands but can’t compel anyone to fulfill these demands. They can request, beg, and panhandle but are unable to pressurize others. Beggars fall into different categories. Beggars can be; child beggars, criminal beggars, or professional beggars.
For quite some time there is a new category of beggars and that is online begging. People seem to ask others online to pay for the tuition, trips, books, medical expenses, etc. There is a little factor of embarrassment in that new category because donors and recipients don’t even know each other properly.
Non-governmental organizations and welfare trusts do that kind of panhandling in the name of public well-being. Moreover, begging can be a choice but beggars can’t choose what they would get in alms. It’s up to the giver what exactly he’s going to distribute in charity. In a broader perspective, countries, organizations, and institutions might be in the role of beggars. This is somehow an organized form of begging. Poor countries ask for money from developed and more advanced countries and the latter grant the former some relief in cash or kind.
Anyway, one is not always a beggar by choice. Sometimes natural calamities, prevalent circumstances, and social and political crises can make panhandling a compulsion for anyone. There exist various manifestations to prove that beggars are not choosers.
Let’s suppose the example of developing and underdeveloped countries. These countries lack financial support or else confronted with the mismanagement of available resources. They seek help from various monetary organizations but have to live by the conditions put in place by the corresponding organizations. The same is the case for the third world countries that seek financial and structural assistance from the International Monetary Fund but have to accept willingly or unwillingly the conditions that IMF imposed on them along with the grant of aid. This further increases the financial dependence of these nations.
Pakistan’s gloomy state of the economy is a perfect example as the debt servicing alone has reached a hefty amount of $10.633bn and the country now needs to borrow on large scale to ensure external debt repayment and interest payments.
As a matter of fact, it is up to one’s consciousness that either one is going to struggle hard in life to get away with the poverty or do nothing other than relying on whatever other people bless him in charity. Astonishingly, there are hundreds of people in the world who changed their plight by the dint of their hard work and determination and broke the begging bowl themselves.
One pertinent example is the inspiring story that sounds nostalgic to many of us is of a footballer who amazed the world not only with his work but with his inspirational words as well. Christiano Ronaldo is that iconic personality who was born poor, and thrown out of school but never let go of his determination to gain something in life. He even developed a heart complication at a very young age but it was his resolution and divination that made him what he is today.
In short, people and nations can do away with poverty and begging-bowel once they develop the willpower to do it courageously. After all, nothing is impossible in this world.
