After a long day of coaching yesterday, I went out with my fellow coaches for supper at a place I’ve been to a couple of times. I’ve always noticed this indian man, probably in his late sixties, running this little provision store besides the cafe.
What I saw for the first time last night was that after he closes his little shop (around 1am I think) he rolls up to sleep, on the table outside of his stall.
When I saw that, for all the things lacking in my life right now, I still felt like the luckiest man on earth.
What I’m going to talk about in this article relates to that. It’s about poverty, about contribution and how you can make a difference. It’s going to be uncomfortable for some of you. It won’t be an article that you can easily read and walk away from, because by the end of this article, you’ll have expanded your conscious awareness of the world around you, and what you choose to do about it will either help you further expand that awareness or close it tight behind you.
In either case, at the end of this article, you’ll have to make a choice, just like I did, and it’s a choice you’ll have to live with.
Still game to accelerate your personal development? No one ever said it was going to be easy. If so, read on.
When I read this articlel; Singer’s Solution to World Poverty it changed my life. It increased my awareness so much that I couldn’t go back to my old way of thinking anymore. It’s a long article, and the gist of it that does it for me is in this thought experiment:
Bob is close to retirement. He has invested most of his savings in a very rare and valuable old car, a Bugatti, which he has not been able to insure. The Bugatti is his pride and joy. In addition to the pleasure he gets from driving and caring for his car, Bob knows that its rising market value means that he will always be able to sell it and live comfortably after retirement. One day when Bob is out for a drive, he parks the Bugatti near the end of a railway siding and goes for a walk up the track. As he does so, he sees that a runaway train, with no one aboard, is running down the railway track. Looking farther down the track, he sees the small figure of a child very likely to be killed by the runaway train. He can’t stop the train and the child is too far away to warn of the danger, but he can throw a switch that will divert the train down the siding where his Bugatti is parked. Then nobody will be killed — but the train will destroy his Bugatti. Thinking of his joy in owning the car and the financial security it represents, Bob decides not to throw the switch. The child is killed. For many years to come, Bob enjoys owning his Bugatti and the financial security it represents.
Bob’s conduct, most of us will immediately respond, was gravely wrong. Unger agrees. But then he reminds us that we, too, have opportunities to save the lives of children.
Like donating online, of which there are so many options. At the end of the article I’m going to give you some links to find charities that you can donate to, and you’ll have the information and ability to help better someone’s life…but what are you going to do about it?
What’s the difference between Bob consciously choosing his car over the child, and us choosing to spend our extra money on that new frivolous something over donating to a worthy cause that helps save lives? Nothing really, except one choice is more morally obvious than the other. It’s just a dollar to me, but to someone else in a worse off part of the world that dollar is a lot bigger, and it could mean the difference between being fed or starvation.
And knowing what I knew, it would have been morally wrong for me to ignore it and not act. It would have forced me to lower my expanded awareness and live lesser than I could, abeit the price being having less money to spend on myself, and I decided to contribute.
The point I don’t agree with the article is where it says to donate whatever you have that you don’t use on essentials. That’s a little extreme. There’s nothing wrong with wanting and having more in your life, if you want to buy a bigger TV to increase your quality of life, go ahead. The solution to poverty is not to become poor yourself! But if you’re making a comfortable living, with more than enough, can you also contribute? Because every little bit counts, doesn’t it?
You don’t have to give everything, but you can give something. You’ll still get that TV, but maybe a little later. But knowing at some level it’s because you’re spending money to help make a massive difference in someone’s life is a worthy price to pay, isn’t it?
So, I’ve told you that you have to make a choice. Now that you know all this, and perhaps you knew before but chose to ‘forget it’, you cannot not choose. Even not choosing is a choice. You see, the question isn’t whether or not you make a difference, because you do. The question is, what’s the quality of the difference you’re making?
Are you going to be part of the solution or part of the problem? Because the solution isn’t very far away from where you are now, and it doesn’t have to cost you a lot.
Everyone of us is Bob, at that train track. What are you going to choose?
Related links: Charity Navigator, Give.org
February 22nd, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Alvin,
Poverty in cash versus poverty in spirit.
That’s what struck my mind here. Most people believe that it’s the cash that makes people rich, or lucky, or whatever. It’s not. In fact, it’s the eternal craving for the riches and the luck that makes people bitter. I can say that for a fact because when my last business went down, it went down quite bad. So sure, I’m a little poorer for it, but it chalked up a hell of a lot of experience. Namely, wealth isn’t a cash game. It’s a mind game. Tussling between being busy and being committed is for myself another game. Can one be both at the same time? I shrugh in defiance of confusion.
In any case, poverty and contribution are ironic opposites of each other. When you are poor, you have time to contribute, but not much ability to make the effort. When you are rich, you have money to contribute but little time. The force of contribution may be stronger here, but weaker either morally or ethically.
To give or not to give?
My conclusion is: give as best as you can. Then learn to grow to a point where you can give until it hurts and still be grateful. Have I been there? On occasion, but not where I would like. If you watched the Passion of Christ, I wonder if any of us have really reached the epitome of sacrifice. I know I haven’t… but perhaps it’s a worthy goal.
February 23rd, 2006 at 12:57 am
Alvin, I love that article too. Read it 4 years ago and since then have been sent that article to many friends. I also wrote an article similar to that and inspired by Singer’s writings on poverty at:
http://pachome2.pacific.net.sg/~jonathankoh/poverty.htm
I totally agree with Singer that the ideal – and I think we have to stress that this is the IDEAL – is to give all necessities away to help the poor. After all, if there are people dying out there and we could help them to live by say not spending money on this mp3 player or that TV…etc, then that would be the moral and right thing to do. Is it extreme? Depends what you mean by extreme. It is radical, no doubt. It’s near impossible to live like that, but I think that’s something we ought to strive for. We won’t reach there, but we should move towards there. I think that’s Singer’s point and I wish we would all hear that. If more people gave to help, less people would die,
Jonathan
February 23rd, 2006 at 5:11 am
As bloggers there is another way we can contribute and that is via revenue generated from our blogs.
I was inspired by charity of the month idea at erratic wisdom to extend it in my blog via good karma.
Just another way we can make a difference as a group.
February 23rd, 2006 at 8:37 am
Great post, Alvin!
You shared this article with us about a little more than a year ago. I remember looking inwards and wonder about the decision that I will make.
I said I would not choose as Bob does.
I adjusted the scenerio: what if the train was originally coming towards Bob’s car and not the child?
I wouldn’t have thrown the switch too. It’ll be akin to murder.
Then I asked myself again: What’s the goddamn difference?
What if it’s a group of children instead of just one?
What’s the difference?
What if it’s an old man….
What’s the difference?
Your sharing back then was instrumental in my choosing to walk the path of a coach.
Thanks for reminding me again.
February 23rd, 2006 at 3:39 pm
Resubmitting this again after I got an error!
I remember this quote which I read sometime back last year. Can’t exactly remmeber verbatim, and the closest I can get goes like this:
“When you have nothing left in your pocket, you are broke.
When you have nothing left in your spiriti, you are poor”
Thanks Alvin for reminding me this again, which further leads to something else too.
February 26th, 2006 at 7:15 am
I have heard giving helps twice. The receiver of course gets the money which helps but the giver gets the karma or spiritual gift.
February 27th, 2006 at 11:21 am
Thanks for all the comments, guys, that’s a lot of contribution and extra food for thought
February 27th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
I have to take a different viewpoint here.
We often use extreme examples (e.g. death of the Bugatti vs. death of the child) when the choices are far less obvious than this. “Giving” is, by the nature of the word, universally a good thing – however more damage has been done to this world by indiscriminate giving than by a lot of the natural disasters that have taken place. Hang with me for the moment.
Handing cash to an organization or a family tends to destroy the recipient’s will to create their own wealth. The food aid that the US supplied Ethiopia during the droughts have entirely wiped out the farming community there. Every piece of used clothing that is donated to Africa takes another job away from a worker in an African textile factory (an industry nearly wiped out by used clothing).
There is a ton of satisfaction that comes with physically working with people to improve their ability to make their own lives. Rather than weighing the loss of not purchasing the tv with the satisfaction of sending off a check, why not do something that will be life altering, personally gratifying, the envy of your neighbors, and incredibly helpful – take a month off your work (unpaid), get on a plane and go help someone.
These tv ads that show starving children and make you think that you pennies per day will change your life are extremely effective in getting at your emotional core. However, don’t be fooled into thinking satisfaction will come from writing a check. Many of the people who have the financial capacity to write these checks have it because of their skills and knowledge; taking those skills to their grave without getting them to the needy is just a shame.
February 28th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Hi Marc,
Thanks for the input. I heartily agree with you that if you can, actively out go there and make the difference yourself with your own 2 hands.
At the same time, I don’t think that everybody can just up and go to some foreign place to help someone.
A third alternative might be to volunteer your time at a local charity.
While for others, who won’t go, the only way might be money. It’s true that charities should be investigated before you invest in them, here in Singapore last year we had a massive scandal involving a local foundation, but I’d like to believe at least some of these channels are legit. People not giving anything at all versus giving a little bit of cash does at least make a difference, don’t you think?
February 28th, 2006 at 11:51 am
There are other things you can do aside from travelling to a poor country and building mud huts. You have knowledge and skills that you can donate via email and phone to people who are working on the ground with other needy people.
The multiplier effect of contributing your skills to a university lecturer, or a doctor, or an aids worker in a developing country will reach considerably further than even a generous cash donation.
I’m not saying “Don’t donate cash” – but actually there is a lot of cash floating around in search of charitable destinations. If the guy sleeping on his desk really bothers you, look at what you have that you can donate that can change his life. Giving your skills is a very humbling experience.
March 1st, 2006 at 12:09 pm
I’ve done a lot of personal coaching for free as well, so I can definitely see where you’re coming from. Points taken
March 3rd, 2006 at 12:26 am
opps ! I seldom visit here. It’s uncanny ! Whatever you are posting, it similar to what I posted on my blog !