The Best and the Brightest are Fewer

Morning Folks!!

What happens when a society fills all their employment positions with less than qualified people?

What happens when a 45-year-old High School dropout has more knowledge than the grad with a degree or 2?

What happens when one know nothing teaches another know nothing and certifies them as qualified?

What happens in a dumbed down society in the face of other societies that are not dumbed down?

I don't have the answers today. I just have the questions based on what I am seeing.

The race to mediocrity.

Rick Schwartz

Is THAT Really Charity??

Morning Folks!!

We each have our ways of being charitable. To me, sharing what I have learned along the way is the way I give back. Personally I think it trumps dollars. Investing ones time is about as charitable as you can get. Others are directly involved with animal rescues and such.

To me it starts and ends with the old saying that goes something like this...."If you give a man a fish you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime."

But it goes deeper than that. Those that give fish for the day and doing it over and over again are not being charitable. In fact they are doing great harm. They would be better off eating it themselves then to do harm. If you were feeding some marine life or wild animals you could be fined. Why? Because it does harm.

Here is just one such example:

"Most people mean well and probably believe that they are helping wild animals by tossing them their snacks," said Ron Velarde, northwest regional manager for Colorado Parks and Wildife. "However, they are in fact causing more harm than good and we will do what we can to educate the public and discourage the practice, including issuing citations."

So make sure you are actually doing good instead of just feeling good.

Sometimes money is a shortcut. But it is just that. A shortcut.

So I just want to show you that some charity is not really charity at all. Where do you draw the line between charity and enabling? Enabling a negative result and not a positive result. You may be doing harm when you believe you are doing good. If you were to discover that, would you not want to change that?

The oldest law of man and animal that trumps all others is "Survival of the Fittest". We do what we can to help the less fortunate survive. That is also a very old law of man and animal.

Of course the worst is being scammed by some entity disguised as a charity. So I really have a hard time giving $$$ to a middleman with overhead when I can go direct and be more hands on. I think it was United at one time that took 90% of the $$$ and said it was for "Administrative Costs".  That changed the way people gave and chose a charity. If you give, you want to be certain it goes to the effort you choose. Today, United gives 90% and costs are 10%.

Point is, make sure your charity is going to the intended recipient or better yet, deliver charity yourself. In person. With a smile. YOUR TIME is the ultimate giving no matter which charity floats your boat.

:-)

Have a GREAT Day!

Rick Schwartz