Feeling Helpless

[neonlyte]

As the years pile on and the carefree years of youth become a more and more distant memory, I find that I'm changing in both attitude and outlook.

When I was younger I would look at the world largely through the rose colored glasses of the young and say, “Sure some bad things are happening, but it will get better.” or “It's not all that bad.” And also, I'm embarrassed to admit, there was a hefty dose of “It's not my problem.” mixed in as well. But sadly, years and experience have shown me that my outlook of youth was not correct and was sadly naive. There are horrors being done every day in this world and it shows no signs of stopping or even slowing in the slightest.

But what is one middle aged father of 3 living in middle class suburbia to do? As I read the headlines of genocide, oppression of minorities, child trafficking, starvation, poverty it all seems so overwhelming. It's gotten to the point that I dread opening the news every day for fear of what I will see, but ignorance isn't going to solve anything either. So I read, and I get more overwhelmed.

Is there truly a way that one person can really make a difference?

I did the only thing possible in your position CD, I made sure my child grew understanding that her small steps would be an essential part of the path to making a better future. It requires patience and whole lot of talking, and you need to lead by example, which means you practice what you preach.

Think of it as being the only guy in the right turn lane, using an indicator... eventually one or two others catch on.

When we returned to England, our daughter was eight. She'd grown up in a 'touchy feely' country where the usual form of greeting was a kiss, two actually. On her first week at school in England, she told us that none of the other kids would let her kiss them when she arrived in the morning, or left in the afternoon. Her mother told her to tell them she was Portuguese and greeting and parting with a kiss was the way things were done in a civilised country. At the end of the school year, we parents had a meeting with her class room teacher. She appeared amused throughout the short interview explaining how her daughter was coping with school work. Then she told us, 'I think I have the only class in the country where all the children greet each other with a cheek kiss.'

You have an advantage over us, you have three children, get to work

 

[sophia jane]

I know what you mean. Like I said in another reply, I'm trying to live in a way that I think makes a positive impact on those around me. I'm really trying to do what I see as the right thing in the world. The environment and human rights are two things that happen to be important to me and I try to instill my children with the same views as I have.

So now it comes to the point where if I want to move beyond this I have to go out and do my homework so to speak. Getting involved on a broader playing field. I don't know what orginizations are around here that are active in a meaningful way but I perhaps it's time to find out.

And thanks SJ, that means alot to me.

There are small and large organizations that will provide what you need.

We just found out about a great place here in Milwaukee called the Urban Ecology Center that has so many different ways to impact the environment in a positive way thru examples and programs, etc. Look around, not just at the big organizations like the HRC, but local programs that make a small dent.

And you're welcome.

 

[oggbashan]

I think part of the cause of "feeling helpless" is Too Much Information.

When my father was young the only information source was a newspaper - no radio, no newsreels, no television, no internet.

The newspapers of those days were comparatively expensive and ordinary folk could only read one in a public library.

The news was what happened in your street or neighbourhood. If you read a newspaper it might have a small paragraph like: Small war in the Balkans - only ten thousand dead.

Now an incident anywhere in the world is "Breaking News".

When I was young the Korean War was being fought. Compared to Iraq and Afghanistan the casualties were horrific yet it didn't make as much impression as the 4,000+ US dead in Iraq.

Then - If someone was murdered in Yorkshire, unless it had particularly horrific aspects, it wouldn't be reported in the national newspapers. Now - A child vanished, was lost for a couple of weeks, and details of the case are on the nightly TV news.

The world hasn't got more violent. We just know far more than we used to.

As for making a difference? A little bit can help. Last night I attended a fund-raising event for Cancer Research. It was small-scale with about 100 people present. The organisers raised about five hundred pounds for the cause. I had a choice of events I could have attended last night - all raising money to help people. That pattern is repeated in towns throughout the UK. Perhaps three or four thousand pounds was raised in all the events in my town last night. During yesterday there were other events raising money for charities as well as the dozen or so charity shops staffed with unpaid volunteers.

Today? Collections will have been taken in our local churches for helping others as well as for the running costs of the church. That is also true of the Mosque, Synagogue and Masonic Hall.

Look around. You'll find people doing their little bit even if it is only with a few minutes of their time.

Og

 

[impressive]

That's a great line Imp.

I'm working on it. I guess time will tell just what kind of impact I make.

Thanks. I ought to be a writer or something.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

I cant save the world, but there are 4 people out there, alive, who would be dead but for me.

I deal with what God places in my path.

 

[glynndah]

I have heard or read nothing but good things about this organization.
www.heifer.org

 

[voluptuary_manque]

I have heard or read nothing but good things about this organization.
www.heifer.org

Another one, especially for someone in construction, would be Habitat for Humanity. Jimmy Carter wins the prize for "Best Ex-President in History".

 

[MagicaPractica]

I think it's important to remember that our small actions do cause ripples that spread and can make the world a better or a worse place. I see my writing as a vehicle that I can use to help make positive ripples. Sometimes it's one on one by writing something for someone who needs it. Sometimes it's something bigger. I think we have to look at what our talents are and how we can apply them.

 

[kendo1]

You need a bigger gun,

*nods*

That'll fix it.







You're making a difference by being a father. Hopefully a good one. Changing their lives and outlook for the future.

And you say you don't make difference?

Keep smiling, Ducky.

Ken

 

[voluptuary_manque]

You need a bigger gun,

*nods*

That'll fix it.

Well sure. Everybody does. You should see my biggest, the first .450 Rigby built on the Left Coast. Man!

 

[oggbashan]

You need a bigger gun,

*nods*

That'll fix it.


Ken

The biggest gun I've ever handled was a naval 15" turret on a British battleship. That really dates me.

A 15" salvo really has impact delivering more explosive power in one place than anything short of atomics.

Og

 

[voluptuary_manque]

The biggest gun I've ever handled was a naval 15" turret on a British battleship. That really dates me.

A 15" salvo really has impact delivering more explosive power in one place than anything short of atomics.

Og

I knew a guy in the Army back during Viet Nam who was not in North Viet Nam (must be clear about this, it wasn't permitted, don'tcherknow) who wanted some fire support, desperately. He put out an anguished distress call, sort of "Somebody Help Me, Please!" kind of things and got an immediated response . . .












from the Iowa! Wow.

 

[oggbashan]

On D-Day the Germans tried an armoured counterattack between the British and Canadians.

It failed. It was smashed by gunnery from several battleships.

Even Tiger tanks cracked like eggshells when hit by a 15" shell.

One ship had no targets but saw a tank firing at a target. It dropped six 15" shells where the tank was aiming. One machinegun nest was toast.

Og

 

[voluptuary_manque]

Even Tiger tanks cracked like eggshells when hit by a 15" shell.
Og

Most things do.

15's were good, 16's were better but the Japanese 18's were a complete failure. Too much of a good thing, I guess. Sigh much as I admire the A-10, from the grunt point of view I really miss the heavy bottoms.

 

[logophile]

Dearest Duckie -

I'm composing another post for your thread, but it will take me a few minutes. In the meantime, I pulled together a bunch of quotes for you to read. I don't know why, but sometimes quotes inspire me in a way other things don't.


No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted"
-- Aesop

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.
-- Edmond Burke

Not being able to do everything is no excuse for not doing everything you can.
-- Ashleigh Brilliant

I am only one,
But still I am one.
I cannot do everything,
But still I can do something;
And because I cannot do everything
I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.
-- Edward Everett

I shall pass through this world but once. Any good therefore that I can do or any kindness that I can show to any human being, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.
-- Mahatma Gandhi

It is not how much you do, but how much love you put in the doing.
-- Mother Teresa

We cannot do great things on this Earth, only small things with great love.
-- Mother Teresa

What we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But if that drop was not in the ocean, I think the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.
-- Mother Teresa

Can I see another's woe, And not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, And not seek for kind relief?
-- William Blake

The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others.
-- Mahatma Gandhi

In every community, there is work to be done. In every nation, there are wounds to heal. In every heart, there is the power to do it.
-- Marianne Williamson

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on Earth.
-- Muhammad Ali

It's easy to make a buck. It's a lot tougher to make a difference.
-- Tom Brokaw

Only a life lived for others is worth living.
-- Albert Einstein

If every American donated five hours a week, it would equal the labor of twenty million full-time volunteers.
--Whoopi Goldberg

When the story of these times gets written, we want it to say that we did all we could, and it was more than anyone could have imagined.
-- Bono

Do all the good you can
By all the means you can
In all the ways you can
In all the places you can
At all times you can
To all the people you can
As long as you can.
-- Bernard Meltzer

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

There are two kinds of gratitude: The sudden kind we feel for what we receive, and the larger kind we feel for what we give.
-- Edward Arlington Robinson

 

[human_male]

Do what I do and begin stockpiling food, water, fuel and ammo.

 

[champagne1982]

If you know a child who lacks opportunity to visit a museum or a bit of cultural display, invite that child to come on an excursion with you and yours. You may fear that child, but stop, consider that this is a kid who wants the joys and pleasure every kid deserves.

Grant this gift and I can assure you, you'll have done the maximum good that one person can do... You'll have shown a child that it's not all fear, anger and hunger, you'll have proved that there are good people in the world. Imagine what that knowledge will do to change a life.

 

[logophile]

Living a life of service is important to me. The saying, "Do all the good with what you have," really resonates. I worked with pregnant moms and new moms for years in various capacities for years. I did labor support, breastfeeding education, midwifery. I also did belly casting (making a sculpture of a woman's pregnant belly) and belly painting. I had a bunch of books about pregnancy, birth and parenting that I loaned out to people. My clinical training allowed me to be of service to other people, too. I am still kind of a traveling E/R for friends and family, coming by to give an unofficial opinion about an illness and offer suggestions for treatment. I look at rashes, bumps, bruises, fevers, splinters and the like. I am definitely the person you want to take with you when you need to go in to a real E/R - I advocate for my loved ones. Living like this was so much of my identity that when I gave up my midwifery practice, I had a huge identity crisis. Who was I if I wasn't always being in service to my clients and the birthing community at large.

But over the last few years, I've come to acknowledge other ways that my service mentality manifests, as well as new ways of expressing it. There are small things each person can do. When you're in the line at the grocery store, talk with the person checking you out. Make eye contact, smile. Hell, talk to the person in line with you, too. Even a brief "hello" or "Nice weather" builds community. When you're walking down the street, or in from the car to a building, pick up one piece of trash and put it in the garbage. Keep spare change on you at Christmas for the red bucket. Service is not largely about money, but spare change goes a long way. When giving gifts to other adults, consider a donation to a charity he or she supports (or would if possible). People are touched by these gestures, and most of us really don't need more things.

And speaking of things, stop and think before you make non-essential purchases. Ask yourself what you'll get out of having it and where it will go in your home. Consumerism is the driving force in our country, and while it does pay the checks for all the clerks at Target / Best Buy / Bed Bath and Beyond, it's also behind much of our country's mentality as a whole.

It's easy to make it a point to always drop a non-perishable food item in the barrel at your grocery store. Take your old ink cartridges back to the store and drop them off. Cut out Box-tops for your kids' school, if they participate in the program. All that homework that comes home in the back pack? Cut in to quarters and use it as scrap paper. There are so many little things that really do make a difference!

If you hear that a company is using questionable practices, do your research and then stop doing business with them. There are many places I don't want to give my money to (not that I have lots of money, to be clear). I don't run out and preach about it to others. I just make up my mind and act in the way that suits my conscience. (Except the Nestle boycott - I'll preach about that one as much as I can!)

Be generous with your spirit. Wave to your neighbors, regularly. Smile at other drivers. Sing in the car with the windows down. When you're feeling positive, spread it around. A little bit of good energy goes a long way, and other people soak it up. It makes the world better, a bit at a time.

Do you have a political candidate you're supporting? Whether local, state, or federal, you can pick up the phone and offer to spend an afternoon canvassing for her/him. You can go in and help with one mailing. Deliver yard signs. Or if you're not comfortable with any particular candidate, but are a registered republican or democrat, call your local headquarters and volunteer for the party. I have driven people to the polls on election day. You can also spend a few hours the day before an election calling other registered voters and reminding them to vote. There are many, many ways to volunteer that are only one or two time commitments. You don't have to over-extend yourself if you're busy.

The thing is this - You want to do it. Start doing it before something shiny comes by and distracts the duck. Even if it's small. The heart that inspires the desire is the most important thing. You are such a beautiful person, CD. Share it around, the world wants you to.

One last thing (you're probably asleep by now) - I agree with so many people who have said that raising your kids is the most important thing you can do to change the world. Tell them what you're doing, and why. Acknowledge when you fall down and say how you'll do it better another time. Each one, teach one. -- Or in our cases, Each one, teach three. Even better.

 

[trysail]

CD,
There's no doubt that things do get a little tougher as we age. Like it or not, the scales fall from our eyes (especially if one reads lots of history). It's not hard to conclude that humanity really hasn't progressed much.

There was one book that did make me feel a tad better about the state of the world. William Manchester's A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance (New York, 1992) relates the beginning of the transformation of Western culture from one dominated by feudalism, terror and close-minded religious dogma onto the trajectory that culminated in societies which, on the whole, permit open inquiry and free expression. It's one of the books that provide an epiphany along the lines of, "Son, if you think things are bad now, thank your lucky stars you weren't around from, say, c. 800 to 1600. Things could be a lot worse." In those days, saying the wrong word or befriending the wrong person could get you killed before you knew what hit you.

Also, think of the advances we've made in medicine. People forget that we've only had antibiotics for roughly seventy-odd years. The control of smallpox, polio, malaria, yellow fever, tuberculosis and many other infectious diseases is a recent phenomenon. The extent of the decline of childhood mortality in just a hundred years is astounding.

It ain't a perfect world. It never will be-- but we are one helluva lot better off than we used to be.

 

[cantdog]

I try to do this, I really do. And it works for a time. But invevitably I see something anyway. It's impossible to just shut out the world all together and I'm not sure that's how I want to live anyway. Locked away in my own private paradise of my own making. Closing my eyes to everything else and saying "If I can't see it, it won't hurt me." may indeed work for me, but it can still hurt others.

This is what I feel is changing about me. I'm no longer able to just sit and ignore. I feel like I must start to act. But where?

I'll tell you what I did, besides Amnesty International, which was also cool. (Amnesty wanted people who could write letters! Nothing to that, and it stopped torture, besides.) I looked about for Good Works being done in the Third World, if you'll pardon the expression.

It turns out that an awful lot of groups are doing those good works, but they all want you to make a bloody career of it. You can do Red Cross all over the world, but they need you for months at a time, for example. I needed something I could do in a fortnight or a week. You know, take my vacation and do something positive with it.

It turned out that there were such things. Unfortunately for me, atheist that I am, they were missions, essentially. The impulse seemed to be, not just building a clinic, but also being a Christian missionary at the same time. Still, they needed skilled people. They wanted plumbers, electricians, computer people, carpenters, architects, nurses, med. techs, doctors, dentists, and the like. They were willing to take me on, given my skill set, even though I wasn't about to evangelize, or, if I did, I'd be persuading people to forsake Jesus instead of accept him.

There was a thing in Jamaica. MMI ran that one, Medical Ministies International. They are frankly Christian, but they wanted warm bodies and skills. They're online. One and, more often, two week gigs. Clinics or whatever, in places that need them. I MMI'd in Belize, as well.

But i spent much more time, many years at a week a year, in the R.D., the Dominican Republic. That one was not MMI, but was run through the International Ministries office of the American Baptist Church. That is the Baptist branch of which Martin Luther King was a minister, if that helps. What we did in La Romana and the sugar cane country around it was, we built a hospital from scratch in the city, and held clinics in the cane worker villages, which are called bateys. Pronounced bat-Ay. The clinics rolled out in buses every morning with everything in bags and boxes, set up in the batey's little church building, and practiced medicine. Meanwhile, us non medical types could come along and do crowd control, or flow control, or take BP's or something.

The rest of us non medical types would pile into a different bus and go to the construction site, where we'd build a hospital. We built, over the years, the Hopital Buen Samaritano. Not just us, of course. The people who lived there were always doing it, and many dozen churches sent groups for a fortnight or a week, all through the year.

I dug trench, laid drains, hammered together forms, mixed concrete and mortar, shifted cinder blocks, shoveled sand, drove truck, loaded lumber. A week in the middle of the sugar town, working with Haitians and Dominicans, masons, plumbers, carpenters, and so on. We spent the night in the church's buildings and ate from the church's kitchens. It was hard, satisfying work, and it did some good. And it was only a week! I paid my airfare and several hundred more for food and for pipe, lumber, nails, cement, and whatnot.

We also would go out to a batey, sometimes, and build a church or a school. We built a bakery. We would also get a chance to go, in rotation, along with the medical team.

And yes, they did a lot of Jesusing. They'd have evening devotions and morning prayers and always be testifying to each other about what they were finding the experience to be like, how they happened to be there, and especially, how much it all had to do with Jesus. But it was still possible to be there without having to get too involved in all that. I never dissed it, and I did not evangelize for atheism, but there was a powerful lot of it, sometimes, especially if something wasn't going very well. They'd pray at it interminably. But you could always find someone who felt it might be useful to actually discuss it and try to fix it.

I can certainly put you in touch with these guys, if you like. Or MMI is on the web, and many another like them, but I recommend these two because I know they will allow gentiles in the program, as it were.

 

[cantdog]

Habitat is also 'way cool. They build housing. They can use skilled or unskilled. It's for God, too, but they mostly just build housing. They can use you for a week at a time, or any amount of time, and they are worldwide.

 

[logophile]

Habitat is also 'way cool. They build housing. They can use skilled or unskilled. It's for God, too, but they mostly just build housing. They can use you for a week at a time, or any amount of time, and they are worldwide.

I know people who go on trips with Habitat - a week or two at a time. They love it, work hard, make good things happen.

But Habitat is now in most major metropolitan areas, too. Here in Milwaukee, they're building every weekend. Just stop down on a Saturday afternoon and fill out your paper work. Your good to volunteer whenever you have the time.

They do such good work!

 

[cantdog]

I know people who go on trips with Habitat - a week or two at a time. They love it, work hard, make good things happen.

But Habitat is now in most major metropolitan areas, too. Here in Milwaukee, they're building every weekend. Just stop down on a Saturday afternoon and fill out your paper work. Your good to volunteer whenever you have the time.

They do such good work!

See, that's what makes it seem more important or significant than just living a life with an impulse to service, day to day-- because you have to pack up and go somewhere. You have a story to tell. You take a break from the mundane.

In the end, Grasshopper, it's the day to day life of service which is more important, but it's good to do something like that.

 

[Katyusha]

As the years pile on and the carefree years of youth become a more and more distant memory, I find that I'm changing in both attitude and outlook.

When I was younger I would look at the world largely through the rose colored glasses of the young and say, “Sure some bad things are happening, but it will get better.” or “It's not all that bad.” And also, I'm embarrassed to admit, there was a hefty dose of “It's not my problem.” mixed in as well. But sadly, years and experience have shown me that my outlook of youth was not correct and was sadly naive. There are horrors being done every day in this world and it shows no signs of stopping or even slowing in the slightest.

But what is one middle aged father of 3 living in middle class suburbia to do? As I read the headlines of genocide, oppression of minorities, child trafficking, starvation, poverty it all seems so overwhelming. It's gotten to the poing that I dread opening the news every day for fear of what I will see, but ignorance isn't going to solve anything either. So I read, and I get more overwhelmed.

Is there truly a way that one person can really make a difference?

I cannot tell you how much this resonates with me. It is so often now that I look at the problems in the world, and see them just getting worse and worse, and wonder what the hell the point of living at all anymore is.

I've asked myself that same question and I haven't found an answer. I have a friend who says, "All it takes is one person making a firm stand, and people will follow, and things will change." I used to agree with him. Now I don't really, because I see what I've tried to do and I see what others have tried to do and the world does just keep getting worse.

I wish there was some snippet of wisdom I could give you, but I can't. I agree, it is overwhelming.

 

[logophile]

See, that's what makes it seem more important or significant than just living a life with an impulse to service, day to day-- because you have to pack up and go somewhere. You have a story to tell. You take a break from the mundane.

In the end, Grasshopper, it's the day to day life of service which is more important, but it's good to do something like that.

I agree that it's so, so, so good to GO and do something like that. It's life changing, from all accounts. Screws your head on straight - or at least differently! Changes perspective, pushes you to your limit. Endless good can come from it.

I don't have a life where I can pack up and go right now. I wish I did, there are so many places I want to travel to, to see the situation, to simmer in it and understand it so that I can work to change it. But, for now, I am here. The good that I can do has to be here, too. For a long time, it felt like if I couldn't go do some dramatic good deed, it wouldn't really be a contribution. But that's just not so. If a person wants to do good, there aren't really any barriers, because it's needed every where, every day.

You know that. You live it, too.
That's why I love you like I do!