Falling Off My Soapbox

I was thinking about my last post and some of the feedback I got from it, and I thought I might like to add something to it. Though I tried to start out "light" and tell a humorous story of how minor the inconveniences are that sometimes puzzle or annoy us, and then segue into something more meaningful, one response I received said that the serious topic of figuring out how to help needy people around the world presents quite a conundrum, and I certainly agree. Obviously, the band-aid approach will never work, i.e. feed people for a while, hope that some meager amount of food and supplies actually reaches the most needy people in spite of the corruption in that particular country, etc.

I fully understand that the corrupt governments in some of these third world countries are largely responsible for the suffering of their own people. Certainly things like drought and natural disasters add to the problem of starvation and suffering around the world, but most of it is because of wacko political systems and even wacko religious belief systems that instigate genocide and internal wars, adding to the suffering of innocent people. The movie Hotel Rwanda tells such a story. Anyway, I guess the point of my first article wasn't to say how simple the answers are to such hugely complex problems, nor to get people to say, "Oh let's give money so that little children won't die." That would obviously be simplistic and ignorant and naive. The point really was simply to say that: it still breaks my heart; and it still is unfathomable that so many children die every day; and I don’t ever want to be hardened to the suffering of others in the world; and surely making a small difference is still making a difference.

There are still options for us here in wealthy America. First, we can work to make sure that there are no children in our own country who go to bed hungry at night. Second, we have enough wealth to provide some of the indigenous peoples in some of these suffering nations around the world at least some of the tools and resources they need in order to make real, lasting changes, though it may be virtually impossible to ever rid a country of its political corruption and the insane hatred that leads to the destruction of its own people. Organizations such as World Relief try to help people with a long-term approach – for example, they provide small business loans to women to start businesses and provide an income for a fatherless family; they conduct aids education; they help local communities dig wells, improve farming techniques, etc. Are these band-aids? I don't think so. Will they solve all the problems? No. Will they save some lives and make some long-lasting changes? They already have, and I believe they will continue to. But poverty and destitution and suffering always have been, and likely always will be, with us.

Anyway, there are no easy answers, but just because we don't know the WHOLE answer, it doesn't mean we can't start somewhere, can't try something, can't save some lives. I don't ever want to become cynical. I don't want to ever be of the mentality that says, "If I can't give everything, if I can’t change everything, then I won't attempt to fix anything." I guess that was one of the points of my original article. But a very important point was also that when we are faced with very small annoyances, such as getting anemic tomato slices on a sub, we should appreciate how good we have it here, how blessed and fortunate we are every day, and not let the truly insignificant become significant.

Ok, so now I have fallen off my soapbox, twisted my ankle, and it will probably be a while before I can get back up on it again……