I often get a very negative feeling when I think of ‘charity’. As somehow I believe ‘charity’ does not work, like just giving money or something ‘to the poor’. And I arrived at the subject charity as I offered to help a friend with his website for the SEMP Association. And no, my offer to help him was not really ‘charity’, but just like helping him with building a nice website as I can’t stand websites that are not built properly. So I offered to help him as a sponsor, which while thinking about it, just means I want something in return, that it is not just ‘giving’.
So when working on ‘charity’ of course when thinking about what inspirational quote to send today I searched for ‘inspirational quote charity’ and ended up on the page charity quotes. And seeing the quotes there made me realize that I am not the only one who has ‘problems’ with charity. And especially this one struck me:
“It’s not how much we give but how much love we put into giving.” – Mother Teresa
As when talking about giving for charity I mostly feel obliged to just give ‘as one is just expected to give if others are in need’. And mostly that doesn’t feel good for me, especially as I am also much in need of especially money. And yes, I still have access to cash, so I can ‘give’, even money, but it doesn’t feel good to ‘give’ when I am getting deeper and deeper into financial shit with slowly an enormous interest burden, especially related to my current income. So anything I ‘give’ for charity just adds up to my future financial burden, as I need to borrow it, meaning I need, or actually want, to pay it back and it adds to my interest to be paid.
But let’s not talk about me and of course it’s okay to help people if they are in need, especially after some kind of disaster or personal mishap. And yes, I also do that, even in my current situation where I don’t feel comfortable in my financial situation. But I am starting getting more doubts about development aid or ‘giving to the poor’. As that just doesn’t seem to work. And while reading the quotes I also got some more clue why I mostly get an uneasy feeling if a rich actor or other famous person ‘gives for charity’. As of course it is easy for Bill Gates to give ten or twenty million dollar. He wouldn’t even notice as as far as I know he has much, much more. Where to me as of the moment it is very hard to give anything, as I don’t even have enough to support myself and my household.
And going back to the beginning, looking at sponsorship of course that is mainly in the interest of the sponsor. And development aid is as far as I know also not just ‘giving’, but often in the interest of the country or the companies in the country giving it. Like it has to be spent on certain things or with certain companies or within a certain country.
So it seems something doesn’t add up with ‘charity’. And of course I am also thinking about my ‘give and receive‘ idea.
So more thoughts to follow about this.