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Making a Difference
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. While I am here on this earth, I really want to make some sort of a difference in this world. I do my best with caring for the environment, and I do my best to raise a wonderful little girl so that she can hopefully make a difference in this world.
Anyways, I have a hard time coming up with ideas for what else I can do in this world. Anyone have any good ideas on what they are doing, or have done to make a difference? To make this world a better place?? I keep trying to sign up for volunteering for different things, but I fill out all the forms and never hear back. Isn't that odd? Maybe they don't think I would be a good volunteer? :-/
Kim
Anyways, I have a hard time coming up with ideas for what else I can do in this world. Anyone have any good ideas on what they are doing, or have done to make a difference? To make this world a better place?? I keep trying to sign up for volunteering for different things, but I fill out all the forms and never hear back. Isn't that odd? Maybe they don't think I would be a good volunteer? :-/
Kim
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Comments
There is a body of opinion that we are the makers of our own meaning to our lives, that when we look back from our deathbeds, we may be able to see how we gave our own lives some meaning in a universe whose meaning (if any) is too vast to comprehend.
Others, like dear James Hillman, believe that we are like the acorn and, if we cultivate what was there from the beginning, we grow into the oak we were born to be. He cites Yehudi Menuhin as an example of someone who, not knowing what he was to become, rejected a toy, tin violin as a tiny child, demanding a proper instrument even before he had played one.
Shakespeare says that "some are born great, some achieve greatness and some have greatness thrust upon them". You can read that as a meaning to their lives. For some people, meaning comes from accident or serendipity. Take Dr Barnado, for example. A Victorian cleric, his ambition was to go on the China Mission. While holding meetings to raise money to go out there, he was shown the children sleeping rough on the roofs of London, dying of hunger and exposure. Overnight, he changed tack and began the work that continues today.
I have often wondered if Jesus asked himself the same question: "Isn't there more to life than just making a table or two?" Whilst we are not all going to decide to teach a new doctrine, we can make our lives matter, which is nearly as good as giving them meaning. We do it by service, as Palzang will tell you. When we serve others, be they our own family or the greater human family or the wider world, we matter. For me, this is the best that we can do - there is no better.
On other threads, I've also advocated "brightening others' day" by interacting with them in service encounters. It's so easy to see service people as "impersonal" when, in fact, they're me. Smiling, asking them how their day is, telling them things I liked about the store, co-complaining about the weather, whatever. My goal is to make that person look at me and smile to shake off the impersonality of the role he or she happens to be playing at that moment.
I also do lots of little things for my partner. Wash the dishes when she's away, pick up stuff I've left around for days at a time, mop the floor, etc. etc. I'm saying this because she thinks I'm being "sweet" but in fact, I do it as a form of service to both of us.
Brad Warner on his blog has a marvelous passage that speaks exactly to the idea of "service":
The point is: you can better the world by how you conduct yourself one moment at a time. Your actions matter. You are the manifestation of your practice.
What a lovely thread. Thanks.
Peace,
P.S. I hope you're weathering your storm OK, YM. You're in my thoughts.
Questzener - I remember a thread we had a while ago on here with this same sort of subject and with you mentioning how polite and friendly you are to people you come into contact with. I love that! Just making people feel better is so important to me. And, more importantly, is there REALLY a place in California called "Crunchyopolis"??
Fede, my dear sweetie.....thank you for those kind words. I do realize that by just being here, I can make a difference in this world, but I just feel like I should do more. Know what I mean?
Each morning, as I go into town for my paper and the single coffee I allow myself per day, I see unhappy shopworkers or street sweepers. I have made it my personal goal to help at least one person smile or laugh who was previously morose. It lights up my day and, I hope, brings a little fun into otherwise drab work. I would be quite happy if my epitaph read: "He brought a smile a day".
As citizens and consumers, we can all help bring an end to the cruelty of factory farming. The following humane hints will help you take action for animals:
Choose only free range or organic meat, milk and eggs. These are produced in farming systems where the animals can roam freely and behave more naturally.
Look out for labels such as ‘free range‘, ‘organic‘, or ‘outdoor reared‘. These labels mean that the animals were reared without cages and crates.
Beware of labelling terms such as ‘fresh‘, ‘farm fresh‘, ‘country fresh‘, or ‘farm assured‘. These labels mean nothing about animal welfare, and the products are often produced on a factory farm.
Urge your local store to stock more free range and organic produce. Congratulate those that already do.
Just wanted to share that with everyone here.
Kim
I've reconnected with a dear friend from Wales recently and she's a vegan. She's been teaching me, bless her, and although I'm not vegan (just vegetarian) I find that as I put her suggestions into practice I fall more and more into line with my idea of living mindfully in the world. This is an area in which everyone can do something to make the world a better place and it doesn't matter if you eat meat or not. These things get overlooked too often in everyday life and we can change that, little by little, day by day.
Thanks Yogamama. This issue is one of the farthest reaching and most important issues affecting all of us because it not only concerns what we eat but how we live and if we're going to survive as a species on this planet. Factory farming is about the environment, world economics, the distribution of land and labour and the politics of economically poorer areas of the world and their domination by richer areas of the world. When we take notice of this one issue and take action we're actually having an effect on many, many other issues and the ultimate health of the world at large.
In my home town, we are lucky enough to have a weekly Farmers' Market which is essentially organic and free-range. Few of the traders come from more than 100 miles away so that there are few 'food miles' added to what we buy. Fruit and vegetables are interesting shapes which are rejected by the supermarkets.
What is noticeable, apart from the crowds that fill our market square every Saturday, is that, on average, prices are somewhat higher than the nearby supermarkets - of which we have three large and some smaller ones. And the majority of customers appear to be middle class and generally well-off.
One of the great problems associated with food choice and reduction in food miles must be the question of cost. Large swathes of humanity get less food than they need (let alone less than they want) because they are poor. Cheap food, produced in large quantities, has been the approach the world has taken, although it should be noticed that it is the rich countries such as our own which appear to benefit most. Additionally, much 'organic' produce comes from Africa. Green beans are an example in the UK: very popular in 500g, ready-trimmed, pre-packed lots. Unfortunately, the popularity of this product has meant that it is now grown as a cash crop in countries such as Kenya and has replaced previous multi-culture with this water-hogging mono-culture. The results, locally, are likely to be catastrophic, both in terms of water usage and of the loss of self-sufficiency. Governments prefer cash crops, from which they can raise tax revenue, to self-sufficient small holdings, so that they give initial incentives to farmers to plough up the old fields and replace them with exportable produce.
Alongside this is the wholesale removal of cooking and 'domestic science' from the school curriculum so that young people leave school without any idea of how to work with basic ingedients or what is involved with food hygiene (food poisoning is also on the increase).
It is our demand for cheap food which drives the decimation of African farms and Amazonian rainforest, without actually feeding the starving. Whilst we are unlikely, as individual families, to change the policies of the supermarkets, if enough of us refuse to buy cheap from far away, if we buy seasonally and cook for ourselves, if we teach our children to do the same, we may, in time, come back to some sort of sanity. Demanding strawberries in winter or spring greens in autumn wrenches the world out of shape. Together and bit by bit, we can help to put it back in shape.
Palzang
Simon - you are so right...just last night my husband and I were talking about how the majority of grocery stores, or the companies that produce all of the processed foods don't care a thing about the health of people - they just care about the cheapest way to make the "food" and how they can make more money from it. Me and my family only eat things that are in season, and like you, we have the farmer's markets in our area that come by every weekend. I love going there. I hope you are right about how if we all continue to do these things, eventually, our planet will be in better shape than it is now. I want my grandhchildren, great grandchildren, etc to be able to survive on this planet!
Brigid - I am glad you enjoyed the information!
-bf
I do not however, want anyone to feel obligated to do this, but if you could, it may well "Make a Difference"...
A favor to ask, it only takes a minute....
Please tell ten friends to tell ten today! The Breast Cancer site is having trouble getting enough people to click on their site daily to meet their quota of donating at least one free mammogram a day to an underprivileged woman. It takes less than a minute to go to their site and click on "donating a mammogram" for free (pink window in the middle).
This doesn't cost you a thing. Their corporate sponsors/advertisers use the number of daily visits to donate mammogram in exchange for advertising.
Here's the web site! Pass it along to people you know.
http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/
Come onto the thread as often as you'd care to, and give a little click....
As you were.....
Thank you for the reminder.
http://www.harvesters.org/
Has anyone ever worked in a "Soup Kitchen"? If so, I'd love to hear your experience. I am thinking of doing it.
Not to pull my pants down and taking huge, steaming dump on your coffee table.... BUT!...
I don't know how this site works - but many times, when you donate money to your local food bank, they get great deals from the places they buy food from.
I've heard that $10.00 is equivilent(sp?) to $100.00 because of the buying power, the special programs, etc. that suppliers give local food banks.
Food banks are definitely a good way to go and I usually trundle all of my money to my local one.
-bf
After reading it - it seems they do the same as our local food bank! They can turn $1.00 into $5.00.
I'd take those odds in Vegas - but only when I was there doing humanitarian work and meditating.
-bf
Palzang
My oldest sister Sine (pronounced sheena) volunteers at missions during Christmas and has been doing it for years. She says that it's the most meaningful experience she has all year. She's heavy into the whole rainbows, fairies and unicorns sort of thing but she says that it's only during those hours when she's volunteering that she really, really feels the "spirit" of Christmas. My biggest regret in this life is that I didn't get up off my ass to do more volunteering before I became disabled. I'd kick myself for it if I could. I suppose I could hit myself over the head with my cane....hmmm.....(once a Catholic...)
I know it may sound puerile, but it's sometimes the little things that mean a lot... a house is just bricks and mortar, but without the mortar, it's not going to stand fo long....
The little smiles, the caring gestures, the simple 'Good morning' to the person you pass in the street.... everything can go to making a difference to that person's day, you never know.
Practising small random acts of kindness....It all adds up.
If we can live our lives with love and empathy in our hearts and in our actions while we work toward achieving enlightenment surely we're doing something very good for this world and for our fellow humans.
MMMM *thinking out aloud* being hit with a cane....Geez I wish I was back in Catholic school...I'm SUCH a Naughty boy....:skeptical now, what I'd give to be rapped over the knuckles with a wooden ruler...Oh those days were SO much fun!
NOTE TO ONESELF: Apply for the British Conservative Party this coming year...:crazy:
Palzang
Therefore, if people need medicine to "adjust" a bit, we owe a lot of thanks to the scientific and pharmaceutical communities that have come up with lots of helpful medicine to help people be more balanced, more respectful to each other and able to see what's really important in a fresh light. In other words, these drugs help a lot of people treat others right, and that's a good thing.
Better living through chemistry is one thing that gives me hope for the future state of our existence.
I'm one of those people who has been greatly helped by medication. It hasn't changed everything in my life, it's just given me a fighting chance to live my life the way I wanted to. I have a pretty severe brain disorder, the panic and anxiety disorder I've talked about before, and these meds have actually made my life livable. Not perfect, not stress free, but livable. Buddhism does the rest. lol!!
So, yes, I'm fortunate enough to have these meds which give me the fighting chance I need not to become overwhelmed with my own challenges and to be able to be of some small help to others and a help to myself. You're right, Nirvana. It's a very hopeful thing. And I can't BELIEVE I'm saying this because just a few years ago I was so completely against pharmaceuticals. But there was a middle way, as there is in everything, right?
When you go to the polls today.....
Make a difference, for all our sakes.
Of course, Fede. I just wish there was more I could do. I will have to get more into activism as the kids get older (and I have the time).
Rambling,
That really sucks. I don't care if there is a shortage, that's totally against our democratic system & amounts to denying your right to vote in this election. Entirely inexcusable.
take care everyone.
_/\_
metta
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/9e377d9a-6f02-11db-ab7b-0000779e2340.html