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I have been wrestling with the question how do I continue to live my life knowing what is occurring in the rest of the world? After coming to these realizations I feel as if I have to make a great change in my lifestyle from my daily actions to the friends that i currently have to align myself with the feelings and thoughts that I have.
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I've actually spent a lot of time hanging out in this boat that was doing nothing but gaining water for quite a while. Sometimes I'd wonder: who am I to worry about whether I'm being too positive or negative, or whether my social interactions were completely fulfilling or any other PD stuff, when there are people out there who are worrying about where their next meal is coming from, or if their child is going to survive the night?
My experience of this kind of poverty is kind of different, I suppose. My father is Pakistani and was raised in an extremely rural village area, his father died while he was young and in such a male-centric society it was almost impossible for his mother to provide for all 9 of her children. Somehow he managed to sort himself out, get a doctorate, and now have his own business in England. It's a long path - but he managed it - he raised himself out of this situation and now he is living very comfortably, and he has taken us (the family) back on many occasions to see where it was his journey started, and to keep in touch with the family we have there.
The first time I went I saw things that really shook me and my "western" values. I wasn't into PD and I spent endless time just THINKING.
Who benefitted? No one.
As with everything anyone ever wants to accomplish, it's all about ACTION.
So really, if you want to make a difference, start small and build up. I think oher poster's views on increasing your money is the way to go. The more successful you are the more benefit you'll be able to give back.
Try getting involved in local charities, volunteering your time, raising money, raising awareness - try organising a trip with a group of friends or (college/school, if that's where you are) and let more people go through the experience that you did, and then give them an avenue to turn their new feelings into actions.
Try talking to friends about it - it's likely that they have a deep seated inclination to helping people too, but are afraid to talk about it and don't know what to do - I think that everyone wants to be fixing the balance, it's just that some people are at a mental point in their lives where they need to be lead.
While I'm in the UK and there are different options open to you where you are, PM me or just ask and I can give you info on loads of different organisations that are doing really fantastic work right now and you could donate money you raise towards. (In fact, at the moment I'm raising money for a charity eye camp that I've organised to be held in a rural village in Pakistan, hopefully giving a few hundred children and families their eye-sight back with really simple operations).
I hope if anything you take away incentive for action from this thread, otherwise your energy is simply being lost in negative thought.