To give or not to give

Picture this you are in NYC and a homeless person on the street approaches you for some money, do you give a dollar, more than a dollar, or do you just walk away? You start to justify not giving money by assuming that the person will use it to buy drugs or alcohol. Now picture you’re in India and there are thousands of beggars in all different directions ready to pounce on you as soon as you walk out of the airport. They won’t go away and they are all children who did not choose this life but were given this fate, some less than 5 yrs old. Your heart breaks but at the same time you know if you give some money to one about a million will come out of nowhere and harass you some more. You know you can’t help them all and with all the hassle of helping one, you realize the easiest thing to do at this time is to just walk away.

Don’t get me wrong I’m not saying you’re a horrible person for making that decision, in fact most of us do. Its that constant struggle we go through in our minds, do you reach out a hand or do you ignore what’s in front of you. Its human nature to want to help, to instinctively reach out a hand when another is falling. We also love the feeling of knowing we made a difference in someone’s life. At the same time when you know that you cannot make much of a difference and after you assess the pros and cons, its just as easy to say no. But the thing about living in the US is that we barely have to go through that struggle in our minds, to wonder if we should. How often do you deal with that issue of giving? We get so consumed in our daily lives and our own problems that we forget how the rest of the world lives.

I know before this trip I felt so sorry for myself and my financial “problems.” By financial problems I mean that since I decided to take the job I love I have had to pay for my mba on my own. So I moved back home to my parents to save some money. By financial problems I mean that I was actually upset that I had to decide against buying an Ed Hardy t-shirt at the moment but considered what I can forgo to get that t-shirt before the summer. Those of you that know me well know that I’m a complete label whore and know how much I’ve been complaining about changing my lifestyle to deal with my recent financial issues.

Now after thinking about that, what does it really matter what that few dollars I give away will be used for. I’m obviously not using it for anything important. I think that the chance that the money I earned can be used to save someone’s life (may it be slim) is still worth the effort. Even if it’s 1 in a million, at least using the money for the sake of that 1 chance is more worth it than for an ugly t-shirt w/a signature on it. After doing some research on www.giveindia.org I realized that what I would’ve spent on that 1 tshirt I could help educate 5 illiterate women. Or to http://www.sksfoundation.org/ where I can help with microfinance loans to women in villages (more on that to come).

What if we did that, went through THAT struggle in our minds before spending on some frivolous item- what sort of difference could we make?

As you start to calculate your tax-refund and think about what you will be spending it on, all I ask is that you at least take a look at the sites.

“Be the change you wish to see in the world…” -Gandhi