As the saying goes, what happens when you give a man a fish?

It easily follows that he eats for a day. But teach him how to fish, then he eats for the rest of his life. These lines are cliché for a reason because there will come a time when you’ll be torn between the two.

Yes, it’s easier to give a homeless person the necessities he would need for the day. But what happens tomorrow? The day after that? The weeks after that?

Cesia Abigail shared her “teaching a man how to fish” moment on Facebook.

She told her followers of one incident where a “baggy-clothed” homeless man begged along Lake Street in Minneapolis.

When their paths crossed, the man asked Abigail for some spare change. In an interview with ABC News, Abigail said that whenever homeless people ask her for money, she offers them food and a small lesson in reality – nothing she has was given to her for free.

She said that her statement is a gauge of a person’s character.

Some people may take it as an offense but some people are much more encouraged to strive harder if only they were given a chance.

Not everyone who is pushed against the wall takes comfort in their situation. Some people are hard workers when empowered and the homeless man is one of them.

Abigail then asked why he doesn’t have a job.

The man told her a bitter truth. He said that he has a lot of felonies and it adversely affected his chances of getting a job and setting his life straight.

Unfortunately, this pushed him to do more crimes like stealing because it’s the only way he knows how to survive.

Abigail then offered the man something else.

“I was short staff that day.” Abigail said in the Facebook post, “So I asked him, ‘You want to work? I have a job for you!’”

According to the post, the man’s face lit up with a big smile. Abigail, the owner of Abi’s Restaurant, offered him a dishwasher position as she was short on staff that day.

That day, Abigail broke a cycle.

Some people just needed to be empowered to be productive members of the community. Instead of letting the man stay in the cycle of begging, she offered him a way to overcome that.

The man didn’t waste the opportunity. Abigail said that he was always on time for his two-hour shifts and has helped not only in cleaning dishes but taking out the trash.

Abigail said that what she did shouldn’t be the exception but the standard.

According to CBS, she said that if the restaurant industry and businesses don’t do anything to help the less fortunate then they are becoming part of the problem.

But through all of this, she also reiterated the importance of the only person that could help someone change – themselves. And once they help themselves, they can further feel empowered when other people put their trust on them as well.

“Just like Marcus, I had my help,” Abigail explained to CBS. “I had plenty of people to help make it to where I am today. They believed I could do it. People need to have someone believe in them.”

Watch how this woman changed a man’s life when she refused to give him money.

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Source: YouTube – FOX 9 Minneapolis-St. Paul, ABC, CBS, Facebook – Abi’s MN