I've spent too much of today worrying about money and time and happiness -- what I have, what I don't have, and what too many other people don't have.
A few weeks ago, I made a budget for myself, on the "pay yourself first" plan that many financial advisors, um, advise. I subtracted 20% from my (expected) paycheck, to begin with (10% savings, 10% for charity). Then I subtracted all my regular monthly bills. What was left over, I divided by five, and that became my weekly "allowance". (I divided the charity money into a weekly allowance as well.)
My allowance doesn't feel like enough. I "pay" myself on Sundays. This Sunday I went grocery shopping, and accounted for an allowance-overdraft from last week, and I'm out of allowance money already.
This terrifies me.
And yet I'm miles, hundreds of miles, away from starving in the streets. I have plenty of food in my cupboards and refrigerator. I live in an extremely nice apartment in a moderately snotty neighborhood. My parents subsidize my gas and other car-related bills, because they still own the car. I have cable internet access and books galore and all sorts of other things. I grumble about being out of money, but I still have my savings, and I buy things that aren't really necessary. It's self-discipline, not painful necessity, that makes me say I'm out of spending money.
And there are so many people who have it so much harder. I don't live in a part of the state that's especially prone to natural disasters, but if one happened I could get away. I don't have to make "tomato soup" from ketchup and hot water, or survive on ramen noodles, or rush a child through toilet training because diapers are too expensive. I don't really know a damn thing about being poor.
So I'm worried about my budget, but I'm also paralyzingly ashamed of being worried. And there seems to be so little I can do to help. If someone I know is suffering, I can talk to them. Maybe I can cook for them, clean for them, give them money, or help them in some other way, but at the very least I can be there. But what can I do about large-scale poverty, about far-away violence? How can I go on with my own life in a world where so many people have so much less? As a Christian I'm told to "sell all I have and give to the poor," but I'd make a terrible Mother Teresa -- I'd probably end up being a drain, not a help, to my neighbors. But how do I find a "lesser" answer that's satisfying?
I know many of my readers here are people who I consider wiser than myself, so I'm asking you for your advice, or at least your experiences. How do you find a way to live abundantly, to enjoy the world and its gifts, and yet also to help those who, because of grief or poverty or injury, can't enjoy them as fully?
How do you do it?
I have been thinking about what you wrote ever since you posted it. I don't really have anything amazing to say, but these are a few of the things I've thought about. And its rather long and rambly.
ReplyDeleteYou talk about not knowing what it's like to be poor, but I see poverty all around me here. No one here is overweight. If you see someone who is, they turn out to be a foreigner. People live in awful places. We pay more for our apartment in a month than a typical worker makes in a year. Most Americans wouldn't be impressed with our crumbling cement block building (even the projects in Trenton looked better) and this is about the best a local can get.
This is from the Book of Mormon. I hope you don't mind me quoting it here, but it seems to apply. The man teaching is named Benjamin. He was a king in the Book of Mormon who emphasized helping other people. He teaches that it is absolutely vital to help the poor (even to the point that it is necessary to our salavation), but then he says, "And see that all these things [helping the poor] are done in wisdom and in order, for it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength."
So, should we move to a smaller apartment, sell the computer, wash the clothes by hand, send the boys to Russian school, live without hot water when the city turns it off, and have me go out and get a job to support us while we donate the rest of our grant to worthy causes here? Or should we not travel? We could do these things. Maybe we should, although I'm not convinced of that. I don't have the strength to do it though.
So we do what we can. We do give what we can to worthy causes, but we also spend money on other things. I think what my husband is doing is important. I can go to orphanages. Donating money to the orphanage wouldn't really help anyway, there's too much corruption. Taking a baby outside for a few minutes is much more worthwhile. Like you say, there are worthwhile things people can do to help that don't require money.
I just try to do the best I can right now. I'm not someone who is really afflicted with guilt, even when I should feel guilty. Guilt can be helpful sometimes. But you're really not living an extravangant lifestyle. And you do what you can. I think you're doing great- and, for what it's worth, mucb better than others in your same situation.