Give.

i get on kicks where i want to watch the news. i am partial to the 6:30 world news with diane sawyer to be specific. anyways last week, they did a weeklong story on the famine in somalia. this meant that i cried for around 10-15 minutes each night this week between 6:30 and 7. good times right? but it was not only sad because 30,000 children under the age of 5 have already died, but that this only got covered for 5 minutes on one channel. imagine if 30,000 children died in a couple of months in the US? there would be mass hysteria...
instead we are focused on the debt ceiling, and our triple A rating whatever that means (still trying to figure it out). and americans are freaking out about it. meanwhile in somalia there are mothers having to carry their children 50 miles to another country just to get their family food and meet their needs. we are worried if we can still go out to eat as many times a week or go on vacation next year.
anyways, this stuff riles me up. but at the same time i feel like i can't really do anything, like can i really do anything about the stuff going on over there? well i can do a little bit...i can give. i could reason that we have a baby on the way and joel is going back to school and that we don't have that much money leftover, but really in comparison, we have too much to give. i could find other things that i want to spend money on, like a starbucks treat (which i will probably do anyway...i can't lie) or going to the movies, or some cute stuff from forever 21. a quick fix to make me happier for the moment. but i found the same joy (and i cried some more in my cube on friday) when i just put in my credit card numbers for doctors without borders, a charity with low overhead that is helping people right now. so its almost like i am there...

so i encourage you to give. you don't have to give to this cause. but find something that does make you cry in your cube a bit and make you thankful for what you do have and what you can give.

To learn more about somalia and what is going on in the horn of africa:
http://abcnews.go.com/International/somalia-famine/story?id=14088327