All posts in Personal Care

I can’t say for sure which type of person pisses me off more:

(1) People who are blissfully ignorant of the kind of suffering that describes over one billion people in the world facing chronic hunger. (c/o UN Food and Agriculture Organization)

OR

(2) People who are not only aware of said suffering and in a position of great economic power in this world, but who could give a flying fuck about it.

I know that asking others to give pause and think about what it would mean to take daily five mile walks for access to dirty drinking water or to watch a son become a child soldier used against his own people just isn’t going to work with either grouping, so I came up with a much better angle.

Hell offers several key advantages as a tourist hotspot. Parking is ample and all expenses are paid (you’ll repay those over time). It’s also nice not having to worry about bad weather; nothing can interrupt getting your tan on and enjoying the heat. Additionally, you’ll never have to worry about having representation; it’ll be tough to find other tourists who aren’t politicians and lawyers.

Unfortunately, this resort falls well short of a five-star rating, as it draws some mixed reviews for the forced sodomy from its army of demons. Also, the continental breakfast features cold scrambled eggs, and they don’t even refill the bacon and sausage platter.

While there are some nice selling points, an eternity of damnation is probably something you want to avoid. But it can be a lot of tedious work to help make meaningful changes in the lives of others, and there’s a new Weeds tonight. Never fear, I’m here to help you do the bare minimum to save your soul! Here are five very lazy ways to be able to say that in at least some small way, you have helped someone beside yourself:

(1) Make a microloan with Kiva

Kiva by this point is a well-known site that specializes in microloans for the developing world. Microloans are a great solution for people who believe in teaching a man to fish rather than shipping him a bag of Groton’s and calling it a day. You can help grow local economies by lending small funds for overhead costs to entrepreneurs in the developing world. 98% of all loans made through Kiva are repaid in full (hey, that’s a better return than we’ve gotten from the bailout!). With one night’s bar tab, you can actually make a meaningful impact that will indirectly benefit other members of each entrepreneur’s community.

(2) Cure cancer with your screensaver

This project, called Folding@home, uses the computing power of everyone who installs the program to in effect create a supercomputer that runs incredibly advanced simulations dealing with protein folding. Protein folding is a largely mysterious but critical biological process. Proteins that fold incorrectly are linked to diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, cancer, and ALS. It has also produced 78 research papers that I haven’t read, but that imply some kind of meaningful results have already been achieved. All you have to do to help cure disease is change your screensaver. Come on, this one’s incredibly easy.

(3) Click a button and feed people

The Hunger Site operates by contributing 100% of proceeds via ad revenue from its sponsors to its charitable partners. Here’s how it works: you visit the site and click a button at the top. Instantly, you’re told you’ve donated 1.1 cups of food to the hungry. You can click multiple times and visit daily. You can also choose to make a difference in the fight against breast cancer, to support veterans, or to promote child health and literacy. Again, come on – it’s clicking a lint-licking button. Make this your homepage and you’ll feed someone for a month. You can also shop from their store to make more of an impact.

(4) Volunteer

Ok, I lied. Unlike the first three options, you usually will have to leave your office chair for this one. There will realistically always be a great need for service that exceeds what available volunteers can provide. You don’t have to be a soldier to take pride in serving your community and, by extension, country and world. Here is an exhaustive volunteer opportunity search. Even browsing for just a few minutes and seeing if you are called to anything is valuable in of itself.

(5) Don’t get too comfortable in your own shoes

How exactly was it decided that I would be born into a middle class family in suburban America and not Somalia? Are basic health and nutrition deserved by all children, or just white ones? How would your life or our society as a whole change if food and clean water were scarce and distant, as opposed to readily available at all times? Do you know the working conditions of the factory where your brand name clothes were made, often by young children earning pennies an hour? Is maximizing income and luxury really fulfilling if you accept these realities?

Please do something. It doesn’t have to be a lot, but good god. I don’t want you to go to hell either.