The other day, I was at the supermarket buying food. After placing some
stuff in my shopping cart and going to the checkout line, I found that
customers were being encouraged to donate two dollars to a local charity
which was in serious need of donations. The money would simply be added to
the shopper's grocery bill, and so it was an easy way to make a small
donation to the less fortunate. It was very nice and I donated two dollars
myself, but after I thought about it for a while, I realized something seemed
wrong about it. Think about your grocery bill; When was the last time it was
two dollars? Unless you are Richard Simmons, it is probably at least ten
times that much, and that's generally just for one week's worth of food.
Although the two-dollar donation was a nice gesture, truly, it would do very
little to help anyone.
  In this way, many people in the more developed countries tend to make
themselves feel better with small gestures that are not very helpful. Often
people give tiny donations to charities that would requires millions of
dollars if they were to ever realize their goals. Certainly these people are
helping a small number of people, but in the end, this kind of gesture may
actually make things worse by making people feel that they have done their
part by giving a few cents to a charity, when in fact so much more needs to
be done. People are distressed by what they read or hear about in the news,
and they try to console themselves by making tiny gestures, giving themselves
a false sense of peace. It's nice that people even think about their less
fortunate fellow-people, but the simple fact is that they are not doing
enough to help.
  Part of the problem is that there is just not that much money to go around.
Even in North America, where it is popularly believed (by people who do not
live there) that everyone is rich, most people are not truly rich; The
majority of people are "well off", which is not at all the same thing as
being rich. Being well off means that you are able to live from day to day
with basic living standards like shelter, food, and transportation, without
serious problems like being in debt or being very hungry. Most people in
North America can handle that, and even have a bit of money left over for
small luxuries like televisions and other items of entertainment. But most
people are not actaully so endowed with money that they can afford to pass
around significant amounts of money to other people; They typically have only
a little left over after their basic expenses are paid, and this they spend
on themselves, buying "the things that make life worthwhile", i.e.
entertainment. There are only a few people in North America who are so rich
that they could actually buy food for several other people in the world. Most
of these really rich folks do not do so.
  But a deeper part of the problem is human nature, which in most people
tends not to focus on the big picture in life. People do not even think about
how their actions affect the world around them; They only concern themselves
with how their actions affect their own sphere. Perhaps worse, they usually
think only in the short term, not in the long term. Indeed, even genuinely
poor people will often squander any money they receive, spending it on things
that make them feel good or happy rather than things that they need. As a
strong example, many homeless people spend most of their money on drugs,
simply because those drugs make them feel good, even though it would be
better for their physical and mental well-being overall if they spent their
money on food. It seems clear, then, that the blame does not lie squarely on
the rich people for not sharing their money, but also on the poor people for
suffering from the same "only thinking about themselves" mindset as the rich.
  It should also be clear that strong, concentrated effort is required to fix
the problems in the world. Giving two dollars to a person who needs it now
and then is a nice gesture, but it does virtually nothing to fix the serious
problems that run deep through our world. Indeed, fixing the world will take
more time, effort and money than you (or anyone else in this world) has to
offer, and this is what makes people give up without even trying. It's the
kind of situation where some few people need to take the initiative and do
the right thing even if most people aren't. I believe that as long as humans
live in this world, most people will continue to do the wrong thing. But that
doesn't mean you have to.