My cousin Ryan, brother to my sister in law, is an interesting guy.  He’s a clear example of “Good” or “Virtuous” being wrapped in a rough and tumble body.  To anyone who doesn’t know him, it’s easy to let one’s prejudices pass judgement on Ryan as an intimidating tough street wise guy.  But then after just a few moments after getting to know him, you discover that he is indeed a tough street wise guy - only one with a warm heart and many other qualities which a lot of us can learn from.

So why am I singing his praises?  Well, that’s because two years ago, I said something (without really realizing what I was saying as I was saying it) that has been bothering me since.  And it’s not until just this past week that another conversation with my boss at my company’s employee appreciation party did I realize how really wrong I was.

So, what I said (and i don’t remember the exact details) was something to the effect of, “I don’t give alms because I’m not sure if the person really needs it.”

Ryan, being as pragmatic as he was, chose to ignore that I even said that.  And probably for good reason.  I mean, that was a pretty obtuse thing to say.  But me being me, from my point of view, I said it because of my experiences in the past where I’d give money to people standing out on the street or outside a store only for my friend to inform me afterwards that they have inside info on why that person didn’t really need the money (sometimes i buy food for people too).

In any case… more onto the point of this post.

So having said that, my intuition immediately told me that what I had said was really wrong.  Only I didn’t know why.  I just knew it was wrong.  So, it’s been sitting the back of my mind for awhile… and last tuesday at the Shaper Employee Appreciation Party while talking to my boss in casual conversation, she said that she was wary of giving money to Charities because for a lot of them the lion’s share of donations never reach the very people these Charities were set up to help.

She tossed out a figure of about 10-20% maybe going to people in need, with the rest going to pay the salaries of administrators.

And so thinking about this further, it clicked in my mind that it doesn’t matter if only 10-20% go to people in need.

Sure, it would be awesome if 100% went to people in need.  It’d be awesome if only 50% made it through the sieve of bureaucracy and trickled down to those less fortunate than us.  But that’s not the case.  And despite all of this, the finer point is that using this logic to justify not giving would represent 0% of donations going to those in need - because 100% of it is being kept by ourselves.

And so to go back to what I had originally said to Ryan, I was wrong because you’ll never know if the money is going to go to food, fresh clothes for an interview, bus fare, or booze… and that’s not the point.  The point is that using this kind of thinking as justification for not giving or attempting to help is many times worse.