I think charity can sometimes be the greatest thing that holds a person back. Let me explain. First off understand that I’m not against charity, in the right context, and done the right way, it can be a great thing. Granted most modern charities are designed to make those part of it money and not much else but say that weren’t the case. I’d still stand by what I am saying above. Again let me explain why. Why do people do charity? The natural answer would be to support things they care about.
While that makes up a lot of little donations and time given to charity there’s more going on here. What about people who devote their lives to charity of their idea of charity? For example social justice workers and missionaries. Do we see them as ideals? Even people who hardcore believe in the religion/ideology behind them often think these people take it too far. Maybe that they’re doing it because they’re hiding some defect in themselves, some short coming that they don’t want to address.
Which brings me to my point. Far too many people get caught up in others and causes and throw themselves into “helping” them without taking a second to look into their own hearts and minds and address the problems that they see there. They think by devoting themselves to a cause they’re doing good, when what they’re really doing is avoiding having to do the hard work on themselves it’d really take the make the world, especially their world, a better place.
Your Own House
Who gives a damn if another country is out of whack if your own house isn’t in order? What good does it do you to work hard for others when you require hard work yourself? What good does it do to send aid to some third world country when your life isn’t in order? The Western world and America had a very sick relationship with charity. Send money and goods to people that hate you makes you a good person, taking the time to put your own house in order makes you backwards and bad. Yet that is where all good starts.
With yourself and your household. If you haven’t got yourself in order how can you expect to put yourself in order? And if you haven’t put your household in order how do you expect to put the community in order? If you can’t put the community in order how the hell do you expect to do true good to another entire nation? I’m not saying no help is done, I’m just saying people are better off focusing on themselves and getting their own shit together.
And if you truly want to do good in this world, then you need to start with yourself. Not some abstract “Other”, this is true goodness, this is true rightness, and if you ask me this is true charity. What does it matter if you help some faceless person who has no relation or love for you across the world when you can’t even offer aid to your neighbor or blood? What kind of foolishness is that? Yet it’s declared a good in the modern world, though it is not.
Don’t Abdicate Responsibility For Your Life & Wellbeing
Abdicate meaning “fail to undertake a responsibility of duty” and make no mistake your life and where you end up in it is your responsibility and duty, no one elses. And failure to fulfill it has consequences, not just for yourself but for those around you. No man is an island and the actions of one always influence or affect another. We’re all connected and the foolishness of one man affects the life of another. The weakness of one man affects the life of another. Such is how the world works.
The best way to change things and live a better more fulfilled life is to start the hard work of working on yourself. Shoring up your weaknesses, after you’ve identified them. Addressing problems and errors, things that go wrong, instead of ignoring them by going off here or there. In a way things like missionary work could be just as destructive to a man as a numbing agent like porn or alcohol. Again, in some ways. Perhaps charity could be seen as a sort of numbing agent in a way.
Usually less destructive and harmful than others, but still a numbing agent and therefore still doing harm of its own. Start with yourself, expect order and excellence of yourself in all that you do. Then the same from your household. Then you can worry about your neighborhood, community, local groups, then and only then could you worry about the county or state and only then worry about the nation. You’ll never get to the world level, that’s just a waste of time.
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-Charles Sledge
