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RE: Can We Be Thankful For What We Have?
I love this! I feel awful they have to go through so much just for water. Thats why I feel disgusted when I see people spending 200 or more on just a pair of shoes! I'm constantly saving and investing my money, Because I want to use it to help people. Yet so many people are just spending it on unnecessary items. In one of my posts I wrote about how each family home has at least 300,000 items! Imagine if we all had JUST HALF of that. And instead donated the money we had left over to charity? There would be a BIG difference in how people are living today!
Yes the way America is set up is when you go to buy a house or a car, they look at the maximum amount you could afford. They generally look at you like you are crazy if you tell them you want to spend less than you can.
I understand the appeal of nice clothes and I'm not here to say what people should or shouldn't do with their money. But just to keep in perspective how much we do have. When people are living on 50 cents a day working manual labor just to provide one meal for their family it should make us realize how good we have things.
Even minimum wage and lower jobs and people that live off food stamps are really far better off even though they live difficult lives and are often in areas where theft and drugs and violence are common.
If people visit some of these 3rd world countries they will be shocked to see how happy they often are. Who would have thought that having more stuff does not equate to more happiness. Some of the poorest people are willing to share what little they have and welcome you into their homes without ever having met you, but we (myself included) will often walk past a homeless person and pretend not to see them. When you have seen both perspectives, it makes you realize who the truly generous people are.
When we give our dollar or five dollars to red cross it's usually not a big sacrifice in our wallet. Maybe we go without coffee for a day. But when someone with next to nothing shares what little food they have with you it means they are sacrificing meals to welcome a guest, but they do so joyfully.
It saddens me to return from trips like these to see people spending thousands of dollars on a fur coat or a bottle of wine when I've just seen how much good a few quarters could do for a family who desperately needs it.
I hope to make more posts soon advocating some of the charities I have worked with and can verify that all funds are indeed going to what they say they are. Helping people makes me happy. Whether that's through my skills or creativity is unimportant. When I have the chance to do something to affect another's life in a positive way, as long as I am able to, I will gladly do it.