Shortcut to Change, just an opinion

We can complain a lot and criticize a lot, I suppose, but will that change things?  Years down the road, folks will perhaps remember what we did and whatever difference it made, but no one will remember what we said.  Or posted.  Even us.  So what can we do.  

The greatest change we need to make is from having to giving, even if only on a small scale.  If most of us did that, there'd be enough for everyone.  Hence the futility of critics  and complainers, who depend on the very system they attack, who produce words and recrimination, not food and shelter and life.  
My reading of Bill Mollison, an Australian researcher, author, scientist, teacher and biologist.

Did you know that you can help a kid in the developing world stay in school for maybe $50/semester; after the 6th grade, it costs maybe $150.  Seeds for crops are less.  You can send a young person through college for maybe 1/20th of what it costs here.

Here at home, you can help who you know easily enough, but you have to be open and involved to do that.  Everybody needs a hand sometime along the way.  We certainly did, and gracious people helped us through.

The real world - friends in Ethiopia

Churches are a good focal point for helping folks.  Efforts include volunteers and funds with administrative costs usually being covered separately.  You can contribute to a project, and all your gift goes there.  Enough for someone's gas to get to work 'til the end of the month, for food for the kids until payday, for heat in a cold winter.

So what can we do that will make a difference?  Answering that one puts our priorities and perhaps our budget on the table.  

Do I spend time and money on ...		(Ever wonder what 'elegance' adds to your life?  In the military for 25 years, we moved many times.  We lived in apartments and simple houses. and a few times, we lived in really fancy places.  They were all adequate, but the fancy ones took more time and effort.  Fancy cars were pretty much like that, too.  Living in non-western countries and cultures was an eye-opener.  I guess that sort of shaped our thinking.) (If I had a recommendation for young people, it would perhaps be to join a service organization and go live in the developing world for a few months.  Or more.  Learn some language, get to know people, understand real life.  Then go home and decide what's important.)
- Elegance?  Luxury?  Entertainment?
- Charity?  Helping?  Relationships?
- Saving for the future?  Of course.
- Working for the future of others?
- Making a way forward for my family?  Absolutely.
- Making a way forward for others?

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How rich do I need to be?  Around $20k per person per year is the dividing line between the richest 5% of folks in the world and everyone else.  That much puts you in the richest 400 million people in the world with 7.1 billion folks below you on the ladder.  Statistically, one group is normal and the other is an outlier, an aberration, and unconnected to 'normal' or 'reality'.  Want a proportional goal?  Change the world for 19 people.  
Or ninety, or nine hundred ... just my opinion, of course.  I'll shut up now.