Living your life while others are suffering...

[johnson102]

Hi, I am new to this forum, to be honest the reason I registered was because of this question that has been troubling me for the past few months. If this topic has been covered I would appreciate if someone can point me in the right direction.

After my trip to India with my parents, about a year ago, I saw the incredible sadness and hopelessness many of the impoverished people faced. I saw children starving to death and a society not carrying about the value of human life. I told myself that I would do something to make a change. When I came back to the States for a few months I found it hard to live my own life when I knew others were suffering so greatly. For example things such as buying some new clothing seemed to me that I was over indulging myself after witnessing people having no money for a food to buy to feed their family. Having fun with friends and spending money on things such as alcohol seemed like such a waste since while I was spending my money on things that weren't necessities I knew others throughout the world could spend that money on better things. These feelings are always stirred up when I read an article, or watch a video that brings back my experience in India.

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.

[skydust]

i can relate to this. it is however important that instead of feeling guilt over what you have, you feel gratitude. it is also not necessary to give up every luxury and live like the people you are referring to as a compensation for your guilt. instead, try to see what you can do to help. can you get involved with some sort of charity organization and directly help these people, for example?

[bleachjt]

If you feel so strongly about wanting to make a change, then you should do it. I realized last year that I want to do whatever made me happy, and I know that sounds like everyone's dream, but for me it was a revelation of sorts. Before I realized this I constantly did what other people were doing, always following the norm. But I wasn't living the life I wanted to live, I wasn't living for me. So I made a change. I started a blog and it really changed my life. Now I do whatever makes me happy and I love it.

Think about it for a minute. What makes you happy?`Write it down, write down what you need in order to be happy and the break it down into smaller more manageable pieces. Man, it has totally just changed my life and the realization that I am in control over my life is really cool. If I can think it, I can do it. So can you.

[John Wesley]

I agree with skydust that you should feel gratitude rather than guilt. I have always thought guilt is a rather weak emotion. It is through no fault of your own that you were born into favorable circumstances. You are in a good position because recognize that this fortune is the product of chance and that most are not so lucky.

Feeling guilty doesn't help the people in India at all. I once read something along these lines by Emerson, "People see a person suffering and sit down to cry for company. Instead you should help them, by delivering truth in rough electric shocks."

If you really feel sympathy for the people of India, take some positive action to help them. Let other people know what you saw and how you feel. Lamenting about the situation has no other effect than preventing you from doing good.

[Eli]

life is so cruel in many ways but just what to do seems so insurmountable to say the least. but perhaps we all can contribute in our own small way. Peace

[Michael Chui]

It's important to note that making yourself suffer is worse than letting other people suffer. You have some measure of control over yourself above and beyond the measure of control you have over others' situation. If you suffer, then the other people who are working to help suffering people will have one more person to deal with.

Enjoy yourself, that you might not be a burden.

At that point, you have it in you to start reaching out to others. I'd recommend taking a look at the Peace Corps or other organizations posed to fight poverty and hopelessness: they can help you help others.

[ahimel]

Pick something you'd like to help with. Was it the poverty that bothered you most? Lack of healthy food? Lack of clean water? Lack of education?

I'm sure you can find a charity that addresses that need. Come up with some system for donating money. Maybe every time you buy a luxury -- an ice cream cone at the mall or a new pair of shoes -- you put an equal amount into your charity savings. Or see how often you can muster the willpower to not buy the item at all, and put the money into charity savings. At the end of each month, donate all that money to your chosen charity. That allows you to be grateful for the abundance of your life, and use that abundance to help others.

Once that becomes a habit, think about doing something proactively. If it's lack of education that bothers you, look into programs that allow you to go teach English in foreign countries. If it's clean water, volunteer at or organize a program to create water sanitation plants in third-world countries. (Starbucks has such an initiative, or, if you want to create your own, I know an environmental engineer that has the same dream.) Whatever you want to fix, make some small steps towards fixing it.

[dorothy hanna]

So much of what these posts have said, is so true. Guilt only promotes more guilt, and stifles creativity.

You cannot impoverish yourself enough to help out the impoverished. It is only through your abundance do you have anything of value to share with the rest of the world.

Seeing the lack, and thinking in terms of lack, does nothing for yourself or anyone else. Seeing the abundance and just how so very much there is to actually go around can cause you a great feeling of relief to know this, and that this can be everywhere, with the right education, and the right tools, and the right ideas, and the plan.

Be joyful to see that you do have the abundance to share with others, and that there is a way.
Guilt? NAW! Compassion? YES! Follow the ideas suggested by others who've posted on this thread. They're are many good ones. So many good ways to help others attain a better life.

[munish]

Question i ask myself is,Am i serving the dirt or the destiny?

[joshbickford]

If you want to make a difference you must make yourself rich. You cannot help them if you have no money.

Whether or not you wear a new shirt isn't going to make a lot of difference on the other side of the world, but if you can fund or start an organization that puts millions of dollars in aid to that part of the world you can make a difference.

You can do even better if you learn how to teach people to improve their lives. If you can teach people over there "how to fish" instead of giving them dinner, you've changed their lives.

[PMcDonald]

Originally Posted by joshbickford

If you want to make a difference you must make yourself rich. You cannot help them if you have no money.

Whether or not you wear a new shirt isn't going to make a lot of difference on the other side of the world, but if you can fund or start an organization that puts millions of dollars in aid to that part of the world you can make a difference.

You can do even better if you learn how to teach people to improve their lives. If you can teach people over there "how to fish" instead of giving them dinner, you've changed their lives.

Great post Josh. This is something that a lot of people struggle with. Most people choose to be in poverty consciousness instead of prosperity consciousness. The universe is a vast, abundant, wonderful place. We were all born here to live the best life we possibly can. We were all meant to live prosperous and abundant lives.

In doing so, we are at our full capacity to give back and keep the neverending flow of money as a positive energy source flowing. The key here is that by living an abundant life, we must give back. If we live by hoarding money and not being generous and giving then we are not really wealthy or prosperous.

[Steve MacLellan]

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?

As a business, I donate money to a number of charities; really not any great amount...

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Henley-on-Klip, South Africa, was built with a $40-million US donation by Oprah. Talk about giving something back...WOW!!

This was on the CBC website. You can find the story here:
CBC.ca Arts - Oprah opens South African school for disadvantaged girls

That should give you some inspiration to become as rich and successful as you can.

Best Regards,
Steve MacLellan

[indestructible]

This is definitely a classic thread. Almost every post has added to the discussion. I understand your problem, and I feel the same way about the West not doing enough for people in Sudan. I agree that acting instead of sitting, feeling guilty and doing nothing is a good idea. I do volunteer work and am working on some creative fundraising activities (my day job is marketing so fundraising is a natural extention). I find that my problems (professional, love etc.) pale in comparison to the world's problems, and thinking of myself on a global continuum puts my relatively petty worries in their place.

I am just reading The 8th Habit by Steven Covey and it is blowing me away. He talks about his interview with Nobel Prize Winner Muhammad Yunus. Economist and academic Yunus is a pioneer of micro-credit. He was inspired to create it after he got out of his Ivory Tower and walked into the towns of Bangladesh. His idea of "the worm's eye view" really inspired me:

That is what I learned in school, what I learned in the educational part of my life. Trying to acquire a kind of a bird's eye view. You drive hard and see everything. And that's called education because now you can see everything. Then I realized in my work here that when you fly high you really don't see things very clearly. You make it up because it's such a blurred reality. You make up stories and piece them together and then you lose touch of the reality because you fly too high. What I was doing in that village was talking to these women and trying to discover his/her everyday life. I was trying to create a new kind of bird's eye view.

So that gave me also a strategy for my work. In a bird's eye view you tend to survey everything and decide on a particular point, then you swoop down and pick it up. In a worms eye view you don't have that advantage of looking at everything. You just see whatever is close to you.

I think if more people stopped sitting, thinking and feeling guilty and instead did what Yunus did, our world would definitely have many more great initiatives like this.

[mtrimpe]

Originally Posted by Steve MacLellan

As a business, I donate money to a number of charities; really not any great amount...

The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy for Girls in Henley-on-Klip, South Africa, was built with a $40-million US donation by Oprah. Talk about giving something back...WOW!!

Is it not true that the definition of profit is pocketing the excess value produced by your employees and the amount consumers are willing to pay more than your product is worth?

That's why charity from the rich always sounds to me like slave-drivers patting themselves on the back for making their slaves work for a public cause of their choosing one week out of the year.

[fubek]

Originally Posted by johnson102

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?

My answer: Buddhism.

[Liara Covert]

I think all previous postings on this topic offer food for thought. Situations that cause us to feel uncomfortable can be wake-up calls to revise our values, behavior and to spend time to add new meaning or purpose to our lives. Consider what kinds of things would strengthen or create your own self-respect.

Step back a moment. When you think of a current problem, what compels you to fix it? What assumptions do you make about the happiness and unhappiness of others? Why not ask yourself, what opportunities do these percpetions or circumstances offer? How could I transform myself and grow?

Consider Mother Theresa. She chose to deepen her spiritual connection to poor, sick and homeless people. In her mind, "Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat." She chose to devote her life to make a difference in ways that shaped her life purpose.

If you wish to help poor people you don't know, you could start by thinking of them as individuals with names, faces and unique talents, rather than simply passing them in the streets. I have asked homeless street people if they could eat whatever I had for lunch and have given it away. Out of principle,I don't give money, not knowing on what that would be spent and not wishing to encourage them to beg. Instead, I donate to charities. Over Xmas, rather than exchange presents, friends and I donated the money we would've spent to local food banks in our area. Each effort makes a difference.

The poor are not all located overseas. You may wish to support or donate time to a charity. Visit a local shelter or volunteer at a soup kitchen. When you buy groceries, buy a bit extra and donate to a food bank. Plant a flower box and take it to brighten a homeless shelter or a retirement home. Your time and how you choose to spend it is a precious gift.

Why not contact local musicians, school or interest group to do a fundraising event? Take steps to raise the awareness of others about issues that matter to you such as poverty. Brainstorm what you could do. Invite someone who works with the poor to give a talk at school, workplace or for your community group. Another thought is to donate time to be a mentor to a child in the shelter, or an underprivileged child in a community (Consider Boys & Girls clubs-Big Brother/ Big Sister roles). You could even ask your boss if you can place a donation can for a local charity at your business's cash register. If you genuinely wish to help others, be consistent with your behavior, lifestyle and decisions of where to work and why.

You could begin by imagining what it would be like to to be homeless without resources, or people to care for you. Review your priorities. If this was you, what would you wish for people to do to reach out to you and raise you up?

All the best,

[PMcDonald]

Originally Posted by mtrimpe

Is it not true that the definition of profit is pocketing the excess value produced by your employees and the amount consumers are willing to pay more than your product is worth?

Technically yes. However, true wealth is gained when the value of the product or service provided exceeeds the price paid for it. If I buy a $100 watch that only cost a jeweler $50 to produce but it works like a charm for 5 years I would say that giving that jeweler $5 in profit pales in comparison to the value I received from having that watch keep time for me for 5 years.

That's why charity from the rich always sounds to me like slave-drivers patting themselves on the back for making their slaves work for a public cause of their choosing one week out of the year.

I suppose then, the wealthy should not give to charity? They should just hoard all their money for themselves? We are all born on this earth to prosper and that includes financially as well. Those who are wealthy AND contribute and donate are doing the greatest possible service they can to society.

Sounds to me like you have a relationship issue with money that you need to work on and you have a predisposition that all rich people are evil or greedy.

[mtrimpe]

Originally Posted by PMcDonald

Technically yes. However, true wealth is gained when the value of the product or service provided exceeeds the price paid for it.

Increase of wealth is gained by creating greater value with equal resources or equal value with lesser resources. No profit, price or money needs to enter into this equation and according to Ockhams razor, neither should they.

Originally Posted by PMcDonald

I suppose then, the wealthy should not give to charity? They should just hoard all their money for themselves?

That would be saying that I want slavery pushed to it's extreme, when in fact I am in favor of the abolition of slavery altogether.

Originally Posted by PMcDonald

Sounds to me like you have a relationship issue with money that you need to work on and you have a predisposition that all rich people are evil or greedy.

Firstly, do you believe slave-drivers were evil? If so, watch the movie Marie-Antoinette and ask yourself if you think Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI were evil.

Secondly, why do you immediately attribute my statement to defects of character? Is it not possible for a balanced man to come to such a conclusion?

Thirdly, do you see any similarity in these two trains of thought?

• Slaves don't know what is best for them, therefore we masters must use our superior intellect to make decisions for them.
• Employees don't know what is best for them, therefore we employers must use our superior intellect to make decisions for them.

Finally, I believe I have a very intense and loving relationship with money. I have studied it and gotten very close to understanding it's true nature. I do not use it lightly and I realize it's power. I also believe that it is a power, an idea, that desperately wants to be tamed and ultimately wants to die a graceful death. I am merely trying to grant it it's wish.

If you want to truly understand what I'm referring to here, read 'What is Property?' bij Joseph Proudhon.

[ahimel]

Originally Posted by mtrimpe

Is it not true that the definition of profit is pocketing the excess value produced by your employees and the amount consumers are willing to pay more than your product is worth?

No, it is not true that the definition of profit is pocketing the extra over what it's worth. You're mixing up worth and cost. Profit is when you sell something for more than what it cost you. Worth is whatever people are willing to pay for it. The goal of a business, then, is to make your product worth more than it cost. You may do this by moving it to some place where it's less common, and therefore worth more (import/export). You may do this by improving your product (fix 'n' flip) or creating a product from scratch (cars from iron ore, art from canvas and pigment). You may do this by waiting until the product you have is more highly valued by your buyers (stock market investing). But it is impossible to sell something for more than it's worth.

Thirdly, do you see any similarity in these two trains of thought?

• Slaves don't know what is best for them, therefore we masters must use our superior intellect to make decisions for them.
• Employees don't know what is best for them, therefore we employers must use our superior intellect to make decisions for them.

I see great similarity between those two trains of thought. What I can't see is any similarity between those trains of thought and my train of thought. I am an employer; I pay money to employees who have agreed to do work for me. So let's use me as a test case.

I assume, from your rhetorical question, that you believe that I have trains of thought similar to the second one you listed. Why do you believe that? Do you have evidence from my writing? Do you have evidence from what my employees have told you? Do you have evidence from interactions between my employees and me that you have observed? Or have I misinterpreted the intent of your question?

I think that my employees have a much better idea of what they want than I ever could. That's why I meet with them once a year, or whenever there's a big change in the company, to determine what they want, and how we can work towards that goal together.

One of my employees wants to work in the computer industry forever and learn as much as he can. We send him out on the new and interesting jobs, and pay for his training when we can afford it.

One of my employees wants to be a financial advisor. There's frankly nothing I can do to help with that goal. But he needs money until he succeeds, and we have agreed to help each other until the time that he's able to leave us and move on.

What decisions do you believe I have made "for" them?

Amanda

[Bisha]

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.

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.

[mtrimpe]

@ahimel & PMcDonald: I just deleted a very long post since I don't want to start a debate here. All I will say is: read the book I linked to. If you take the effort to dig through the very old-fashioned English you will find in there the true cause of poverty in this world!

This book will show you that poverty and the divide between the rich and the poor is simply an unavoidable side-effect of capitalism (of the concept of property to be precise) and that trying to end poverty without replacing capitalism is like trying to end smoke without putting out the fire.

I will try to restate what Mr. Proudhon has written in this book in a more concise version soon, until that time: Please read it!

[Michael Chui]

@mtrimpe:

Keep in mind that Proudhon wrote over a century ago. The book was originally in French, and from the 1.5 chapters I've read so far, the contextual history is not insignificant.

One of the grand advances of our day are business models built on the Information Age. While they continue to work inside older paradigms that may be wrong, it may be a weighty mistake to generalize that because the older paradigms are wrong, even the modern practices are wrong.

Proudhon necessarily speaks from an abstract, utopian point of view. I do that a lot, too, so I'm very familiar with it. I also know, and agree with, the idea that inapplicable philosophy is useless by itself. You have to specify how you get there from here. Proudhon briefly acknowledges this, IIRC. The grandest of philosophies are frequently difficult in practice.

Sure, trying to blow away the smoke without putting out the fire may be impossible, but can we put out the fire without another way of keeping ourselves warm?

[mtrimpe]

As to the contextual history, I've dug in pretty deep and to me it has become virtually insignificant. We still have interest on loans, people still pay rent for their apartments, companies still make profits and nations still levy taxes.

I personally recently adopted the belief that it is best to have a strong vision of your personal utopia and find the most direct, powerful and effective route towards it. Finding that route takes a lot of imagination and creativity and most importantly the willingness to accept that it will probably be later generations that reap what you sow, but it has already given me a far greater sense of purpose.

As to your statement about the applicability of this philosophy, I have already made quite some changes in the last few weeks since reading the book:

• I abandoned my goal of becoming rich
• I now see my boss(es) as people who offer me a service and demand access to the information I need to determine if they're not getting paid too much for what they offer me.
• I set the goal of paying off all my debt because that was making some investor somewhere rich without having to work for it
• I decided that any undertaking I plan would only involve freelancers or philanthropists.
• It made me develop concrete plans for an electronic system of government where the citizen can decide how he wants to spend his taxes.
• I converted my initial plan to get rich by becoming the eBay of real estate, to a plan to facilitate swapping occupancy of real-estate back and forth as needed easily and effortlessly.
• It got me started on developing plans for an internet based economy that takes away the fallacies of capitalism I could detect and that can peacefully spread over the world.

Each one of these changes brings the world closer to my personal utopia, instead of taking me farther away from it. I now feel that I'm working on improving the foundation of society, instead of adding another floor onto any one sky-scraper in it, and it feels a hell of a lot better!

I do love your final statement though. I must subconsciously have been asking for that play on words to be made . Let's just say that I'm turning up my metabolism and working on nuclear fusion.

[Fifth_Column_Media]

This is a little off topic from some of the previous replies but deals directly with the topic of the original post... Or so I hope.

I seem to have a similar problem in that I too seem to struggle daily with issues of how can I live happily with so many people suffering. Some days it gets so bad that I get depressed and distant with my friends. I've never been to any other countries, but I know if I did I'd probably have a very similar reaction as you, johnson102. I feel the same way anytime I read about genocide if the Sudan, or in Rwanda a few years ago.

This was one of the major reasons I started my own online publication, so that I could in some small way help these problems by making some people aware of them (not just the problems but the good things too) in the hope that maybe if more people were aware that more people would want to change things and act. It's not much but it makes me feel a little better that I can at least try to make a difference.

I don't know the answer to feeling bad about it, I am kind of glad that there isn't one because that way I'll be motivated to change the world. Hopefully this wasn't too off topic compared to the previous replies.

Take care,

D.A.N.

Owner/Editor - Sights & Sounds from the Fifth Column
The Fifth Column Online Magazine - Sights & Sounds from the Fifth Column - Music, Art, Articles & More

A division of Fifth Column Media -- Freelance Graphic/Web/Multimedia Design
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[mtrimpe]

Take that guilt and multiply it times 10. Multiply it times 10 again. Make it more intense, turn the volume up, make it so that it almost tears your heart apart. Now let that feeling grow stronger and stronger over the next 10 years.

OK, now you're on your way to becoming a healthy human being.

[Dan.Linehan]

Originally Posted by mtrimpe

[*] It made me develop concrete plans for an electronic system of government where the citizen can decide how he wants to spend his taxes.

That's an interesting idea. I like it.

Good luck honing in on and working on your passions as part of your daily routine mtrimpe!

[John Hill]

In response to the original post. Having lived in Thailand for the last 2 years and travelling to some neighboring countries I have witnessed some things I wished I hadn't but when i look at the bigger picture of my life I see that the things I have seen only further my life education and I know I might not be able to help everyone but I know I can help some.

I don't think you should feel guilty, helpless or upset about spending money on yourself but instead do what you think is right from within or give what you can afford, there is nothing more that you can do. If you feel you want to go to these places and help out maybe that's the best thing you can do but if you choose to stay in the States that's ok too. It's only normal human nature to feel the way you do and being the caring person that you are and having seen what you have seen, this is part of your education and now it's up to you to decide on what level you can help and feel comfort that you are doing your bit.

John

[dor]

Originally Posted by johnson102

I saw the incredible sadness and hopelessness many of the impoverished people faced.

Johnson, I have been to India too - and I have to say - you read about poverty you see pictures, film, video NOTHING prepares you for actually seeing it.
I was only there two weeks put it was a life changing experience...

This may sound like a slogan but...'being sad won't make one sad person happy' being poor won't make one poor person rich....
I think there is a lot of truth in that.

[PMcDonald]

Originally Posted by mtrimpe

Firstly, do you believe slave-drivers were evil? If so, watch the movie Marie-Antoinette and ask yourself if you think Marie-Antoinette and Louis XVI were evil.

With all due respect, you made the slavery analogy, not me. Your comments certainly carry a negative connotation with regards to rich people and charity.

Secondly, why do you immediately attribute my statement to defects of character? Is it not possible for a balanced man to come to such a conclusion?

Point taken.

Thirdly, do you see any similarity in these two trains of thought?

• Slaves don't know what is best for them, therefore we masters must use our superior intellect to make decisions for them.
• Employees don't know what is best for them, therefore we employers must use our superior intellect to make decisions for them.

Why must anyone need to be enabled? We all have the ability within ourselves to absolutely do whatever we want to do in life, we only need to be pointed in the right direction and to come to that self-realization. I believe in empowerment, guidance, advising - not having others make decisions for me. There is a profund difference.

[Liara Covert]

Benjamin Franklin reflected deep within himself and came up with 13 virtues for living. I would invite you to take a closer look at these four:

Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i.e., waste nothing.

Industry: Lose no time; be always employed in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.