Why on only 2 or 3 days a year do we focus on giving?

After my interview with Nate of ItStartsWith.Us and his focus on creating a platform for people to change the world and give back to those around them, I wonder if holidays are used as an excuse to put off doing good in the world on a regular basis.

Like giving money to a charity as a tax writeoff, do we use socially due acts of charity and giving as excuses to relieve ourselves of a duty to engage in the world and the problems of poverty, starvation, human rights, and environmental disaster?

Somewhere in the world, a child dies of hunger every five seconds.

How does that statistic strike you?

Food is one of the most basic necessities.  Empowering communities to feed themselves with healthy, sustainable systems is a hard task for nations and global NGOs to tackle so why should individuals bother if it’s so difficult?

What can individuals do for others when entities like the U.N. struggle to change the world?

Don’t just be the change, mass-produce it. We need, through brilliant innovations, bold enterprise and political willpower, to make sustainability an obligatory and universal characteristic of our society, not an ethical choice. We need to remake the systems in which live. We need to redesign civilization. Anything less is failure.

-Alex Steffen, WorldChanging.com

We can be like Nate and his A-Team and mass-produce change.  I want you – my readers – to engage and become Drops of Change in the world.  For each of you who mindfully engages in your sphere of influence creating meaningful change, you become a role model for others, you are the drop of change which creates a ripple of change.  With enough drops we have a Sea of Change.

Today, I give you this task.

“If you wish to experience peace, provide peace for another.”

Tenzin Gyatso, The 14th Dalai Lama

Take some time out of your day and do something for a friend, family member or someone who barely knows you that will give them a small amount of peace. Take the worry off of someone by performing a small action that they stress about.  Be considerate and don’t overstep boundaries.

Examples: Make a meal for a friend with kids so they can relax for 10 minutes.  Volunteer to take care of the garbage or cleaning up the kitchen after a big meal (thanksgiving anyone?).

Basically say, “I’ll take care of it, don’t worry about it.”  Then go out and take care of it.

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