overpaid

in the rare occasions that you may possibly be overpaid (e.g. when compared to a great school teacher, who's shaping the lives of the younger generation, and yet who's struggling to meet bills), what do you do?

ask to be paid less?

improve your standard of living (nicer apartment, nicer car, etc)?

enjoy the good times while they last?

bank away enough to go through the hard times? (how does one estimate the length of time of the hard times?)

try to see what you can do for the ones already in hard times that last indefinitely? (how much? 2%? 10%? 50%?) (do you donate, volunteer, or set up something? how much time to put in?)

live frugally until we die, then we can decide what we want in our will anyway?

opportunities

this morning, i walked away from something quite nice - an interesting job that i could probably do rather well.

it was tough.

it's the fear of losing out, perhaps the opposite of buyer's remorse - if i walk away now a similar opportunity won't come up again. what if this company turns into the next big thing? what if i never get hired again, or won't find a job for months or more?

well...

um... well. no matter.

there are so many missed opportunities that never crossed my path anyway. time to think about what kinds of opportunities really matter, and to look for those instead.

and perhaps, find time to create opportunities for those that never had even one opportunity in the first place.

who do i help?

there are literally a million causes to choose from.

the big ones - orbis? oxfam? msf?

the small ones that get featured in magazines that are more intimate, and that the same donation amount might mean more?

my schools, who have been crucial to my becoming who i am?

charities my friends are running?

start a charity for a cause i believe in?

how do i get the highest "return", so to speak? how does one measure the cost of life? saving one life in richer countries could be saving several thousands in poorer countries. with the same funds, do you fix someone's eyes, or do you give someone a chance to walk again? if you could either build a hospital or several schools, what do we go for?

thing is, we don't want to end up helping people who didn't need our help in the first place. we don't want our donations going to corrupt officials. we don't want to coddle the needy so they never stand up on their own feet.

and in any case, our donations are only a drop in the ocean of pain. it just really might not matter at all. those people in need will actually go away if we don't think about them too much.

there might never be a conclusion. but perhaps, the least we could do is think about it. maybe, the second least is to chat with our friends so more people are thinking a tad more about it. and possibly, the third least, is to help someone, rather than no one.

armchair charity

with so many evils and injustices in the world, it's really just too much to handle. where do you start?

sure, building homes, helping field workers in disaster area, visiting orphans and the terminally ill, they are nice but that's for people who have a lot more time than me.

i need to taking care of my own business first before i can help others.

i'm better at making money, so i might as well make lots of money first and then donate some of it. (look at warren buffett and bill gates)

i will do it, just not today. as soon as i finish this... and that...

so, in the mean time, i'll just donate a little money. which is nice, of course. and all these are surely valid reasons too.

but is it too much to ask to get up from your armchair once a month? once a season? once a year? perhaps you can start by figuring out where you want to start?