Love is a funny thing. It can bring us joy, create critical connections between people, and provide comfort in the darkest moments. But what would it look like to approach love without sacrifice? Can you have true love without pushing your limits and venturing out of your comfort zone?

How do love and sacrifice go together, or is love without sacrifice like theft? Come on a journey to talk about love and sacrifice and explore some stories of migrant workers in Asia. We will hear about them and how many will sacrifice all for the families they love – even their daily bowl of rice.

Table of Contents

• Is Love Without Sacrifice Like Theft?
• Lessons Learned About Love and Sacrifice
  • Listen to Our Podcast – Half A Bowl Of Rice – Lessons Learned From Asia
• Lessons Learned About Love, Sacrifice, and Half a Bowl of Rice.
• 3 Lessons We Can Learn About Love and Sacrifice From The Migrant Workers
  • Sacrifice is Love. Love is Sacrifice   
  • Give freely of your love to those who matter most.
  • Sacrifice for the next generation
• About Migrant Workers – Reference Information
  • Why do people migrate to work somewhere else?
  • What is the definition of a migrant worker?
• Related Questions
  • 7 Tips to Travel By China’s High-Speed Train System
  • Is Hong Kong A Separate Country Or A Part Of China?
  • What About Early Morning Exercise in Asia and Vietnam?

Is Love Without Sacrifice Like Theft?

It’s easy to get lost in the fairytale of love, dreams, and imaginings of a beautiful, happily ever after. Love isn’t always as simple as it appears though – life throws us a lot of curveballs sometimes, making us ask difficult questions like “Is love without sacrifice like theft?”

It was Nassim Nicholas Taleb who wrote in his book The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms and said:

Love and sacrifice should go together. For those that we love, we should give to them our love freely. And because we love them, we should be willing to also freely sacrifice for those we love.

But sometimes, we are human and may feel torn between our emotions and desires, trying to strike a balance between true love and what we want.

But relationships and people are never perfect, so no matter how hard things may seem in your relationship, there are actions you can take that will bring meaning back into your connection. One of those actions we can all take is to sacrifice for those we love.

Read on to learn lessons and hear some stories about what it means to have profound love and sacrifice.

Lessons Learned About Love and Sacrifice

I spend a lot of time in factories around Asia to prepare products for export, usually shipped to the United States. While we manufacture the products, sometimes I can get to know some factory laborers who do menial work, but they always smile on their faces. They are happy to have a chance to work – do any work.

As I watched these men and women factory workers manufacturing products for export, I reflected on how their work sacrifice was an act of love. They were willing to sacrifice whatever they had to help provide for their families. These factory laborers understood that sacrifice is love, and true love must include some form of sacrifice. They taught me more of what it means to give love in that true love freely knows no bounds.

As I have gotten to know these men and women working on the factory floors in Asia, I have learned about their lives, which has taught me some essential life lessons.

Lessons Learned About Love, Sacrifice, and Half a Bowl of Rice.

While doing product development work in a factory in China,  the Factory Manager pointed out to me that the migrant workers in his factory paid for their food, so each day, they would take their daily bowl of rice and cut the bowl of rice in half, eating half the bowl of rice for lunch and saving the other half a bowl of rice for their dinner. 

Though rice is relatively cheap, these migrant workers wanted to save every cent they could by cutting their rice bowls in half, even if just a few pennies.

Most of these same Chinese migrant workers come from the poorest parts of China to seek employment in the larger cities where they do the most menial work that others will not do. They clean out the toilets, sort or collect the garbage, wash floors and windows or spend all night outside in the cold and dark, guarding a building or factory.

They have little hope of ever rising above their station in life, and most spend their entire life doing menial labor. They do not have the education required for even the most basic manufacturing skills or labor.

These same migrant workers are usually considered to be at the very bottom of the Chinese labor force. Yet, they are willing to sacrifice all they have, even their daily bowl of rice, so the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th generations of their posterity will have more opportunities than they ever would.   

They understand that when born into poverty in a third-world country, it is challenging to get out of that poverty cycle, so a great sacrifice of love is required – even to forego eating their daily bowl of rice.  They will not waste anything, so they can save every penny they earn.

3 Lessons We Can Learn About Love and Sacrifice From The Migrant Workers

Migrant workers often lead difficult and challenging lives, with many enduring long periods away from home and in unfamiliar settings. Despite these immense difficulties, migrant workers make incredible sacrifices daily due to their strong commitment to love.

While we hear countless stories of pain and suffering within this community, there are also uplifting examples of strength, courage, and resilience – valuable lessons that can be applied to our everyday lives.

We in the West can learn many lessons from these migrant workers willing to give up all they have. These include lessons on sacrifice, giving, and caring about your posterity, which you may never meet in this life.

Here are 3 powerful lessons we can learn about love and sacrifice from these migrant workers.

Sacrifice is Love. Love is Sacrifice

These migrant factory workers understand that sacrifice is important to them, so they are willing to sacrifice all they have. It is estimated there are over 277 million migrant workers in China. Though they are all Chinese and not migrating to another country, they are still called migrant workers as they migrate from their hometowns to another location within China. This migration principle is also a common practice in many other Asian countries. Not all these migrants are low-paid factory workers, but many are.

These workers usually leave their hometowns and families to work in another city or province. Here are some sacrifices I have seen them make time and time again:

• They give up their hometowns – As migrant workers, they live away from their hometowns and their families. Many of them are like a foreigner living in a foreign land. They may not fully understand the language of where they live as many may only really speak the local dialects of their hometown areas. The food may be different, and even though they are still in China, the culture and the people of the place they work may be different.
• They see their families usually once a year – Many of these migrant workers will see their families only once a year. It could take a week to travel home to see them, and then they will only spend a few weeks at home before heading out again. They miss seeing their children grow up, and many hardly know them. Most of them prefer to stay home in their hometowns if they could find work there that would help them support their families. Their children are not allowed to come with them to their new location as they do not have the papers required to attend school in the area they are working in. So they have no choice but to work in another province and see their families for a few weeks a year.
• They give up their way of life – Many of these migrant workers were farmers. They know how to live off the land and tend to their livestock and garden plots. This is what they have done most of their lives. So for them to move to the cities to work in a factory, they are, in a sense giving up their way of life as they have always known it. They have traded in their garden hoe for a broom handle or toilet bowl brush.

Despite their sacrifices and hardships, many of these same migrant workers also realize that they can show their families that they love them by making this great sacrifice for them.

Mitch Albom, the author of The Five People You Meet In Heaven, eloquently put it:

These migrant workers understand that they are not losing something with their sacrifice of love; instead, they are just passing their life on to someone else. Their life is about how do I provide for my family. And because of this, they are willing to sacrifice even half a bowl of rice for the extra pennies they get each day.

One of the biggest lessons we can learn is that love is about being willing to sacrifice for someone else, even the tiny things in life.   Love and sacrifice go hand in hand. 

Give freely of your love to those who matter most.

My grandfather would insist on eating the burnt toast, not because he could not afford to toss the burnt toast away, but because he refused to waste anything, even the burnt toast.  He also felt by insisting on eating the burnt toast that, others would not have to. 

When we love another human being, we should freely give to them without expecting anything in return, and many of these migrant workers I have met have no expectations about their lives. They realize that they may spend their lives sweeping the floors or cleaning the toilets, and that is OK as they have a higher purpose in all this – that is their families.

Israelmore Ayivor, an inspirational speaker, author, and blogger, has said:

I have often wondered what these migrant workers are getting in all the sacrifices they are making. They hardly knew their children and could not watch them grow up. Many also only see their wives a few weeks a year or their parents, uncles, aunts, or others. So many times, I have felt they are missing out on what is important in life.

But at the same time, I have been around Asia and poverty enough to know there may be few choices for them. When you are faced with the choice that your family may starve to death or your children will not get an education, you make the best choice you feel is right for you. And that is what they are doing. They are making the best choice for themselves and their families and their individual circumstances.

Sacrifice for the next generation

One of the things these migrant workers are doing is they are sacrificing now for the future generation. They understand that getting out of the poverty cycle, most of them were born, takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice.

These Chinese migrant workers sacrificed their daily rice bowl for the future generation they may never know.  Like we may also never see the fruits of our sacrifice and love – but that is Ok.  That should never stop us from loving and sacrificing for another human being. 

I loved this quote by Gaylord Nelson, an American Politician and Environmentalist from Wisconsin when he said:

This kind of sacrifice these migrant workers are making is a sacrifice they may never get thanks for. It may be an unspoken kind of sacrifice that will never be acknowledged. People may never really know or understand their sacrifice.

This is one of the things that makes it such a beautiful sacrifice. They are making this sacrifice not because they will be famous or one day be acknowledged for it – the chances are that will never happen. They will go down into history as a group of uneducated, unknown men and women of little significance. It is that knowledge that makes this sacrifice so much more powerful. They are making this great sacrifice for one reason – love.

We may often feel our love for another person is not appreciated or reciprocated.   We may love a child or spouse, and they decide to go in a direction in life that we may disagree with.  We may feel discouraged or upset and feel our love and sacrifice is a waste of our time and efforts.  But love and a silent sacrifice for another person are never a waste.  

When we love someone, we should be willing to sacrifice for them. This should be part of loving. Love without sacrifice is not to love at all.

About Migrant Workers – Reference Information

Why do people migrate to work somewhere else?

There are many reasons why someone may migrate to work in another location or country. For some, it may be economics because they hope to have a better life. But for others, it may be much more complicated than that. Below are some of the reasons. This list is not meant to be exclusive, as there be many reasons why people look to migrants to find work, but here are some of the more common ones:

• Economics – They may not be able to survive in their present situation, so they need to leave to eat and survive.
• Land issues could be the land they farmed on was taken away from them, or they have no land to farm on, or the land has dried up, and they can no longer farm on it.
• Unemployment – There may be no jobs or work in their home areas.
• A large family that needs support may have a large family and not enough income to support them.
• Natural Calamities – There could be natural calamities that come and destroys their homes, so they have no choice but to leave.
• Dangerous environment – They may be constantly afraid of being killed through war, gang violence, or other things, so they leave to try to find a better and safer life.

What is the definition of a migrant worker?

The Oxford dictionary defines a migrant worker as:

So, anyone moving from their home area to work in a new location is a migrant.

As most people are so mobile in America, if someone moves from one state to another to find work, we do not call them migrant workers. For Americans, migrant workers are usually people who move to another country, such as those that move from South or Central America, to find work in the United States.

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Related Questions

7 Tips to Travel By China’s High-Speed Train System

China has a fantastic world-class high-speed train system. Their high-speed trains travel at lightning speed throughout China, and you can reach all major cities by high-speed trains. But with most things in China, it is helpful if you know how to navigate this high-speed train system.

By clicking here, you can discover 7 Tips to Travel By China’s High-Speed Train System.

Is Hong Kong A Separate Country Or A Part Of China?

Hong Kong and China have basic laws similar to what we would in the United States consider our constitution or our rights as individuals and citizens of a country. The Hong Kong Basic Law clearly states that Hong Kong is part of China’s territory.

By clicking here, you can discover more by reading our blog Is Hong Kong A Separate Country Or A Part Of China?

What About Early Morning Exercise in Asia and Vietnam?

In the early mornings in Hanoi, Vietnam, many streets bustle with people out exercising. It is usually safe to go out early in Hanoi, Vietnam. People in the city tend to start their days very early. You must also get up early to see the early morning exercise. There are many places in Hanoi where you can see a lot of early-morning exercisers. Starting the day early is a habit that many people have throughout all Asia.

You can learn more by reading our blog Early Morning Exercise in Hanoi, Vietnam, What You Need to Know by clicking here.