So, yesterday, the task was to perform service. Not like "do a service today" of course! It was just the decision to start being more active in that part.
But here, I do have some different opinions. Service isn't something to schedule. Helping others isn't a part of the "weekly charity meeting" or something. Of course Brett doesn't put it that way, but what I read between the lines was stuff like "Just do it, no need to worry about what and why, just help in some way". Well, that doesn't do... Milions of people give money, food, clothes in charity, but there are still people not having anything to eat. And I'm not talking about people in Africa, I'm talking about people in the city I live in, and I'm sure in yours too!
Charity is always failing... We might be hearing about sums raised an everything, but I don't see any real life help. I only see people in designer suits, women in dresses that costs more than minimum wage, gathering in a galla and "raising money for the poor" in a way that can only be irony...
On the other hand, I've seen how regular people help each other out! How a guy next door, who has no job is teaching somebody else, so that other one can get a job, how people who strugle to raise their own kids give food to other families, not through organizations, but in person. How a whole lot of students, who just want to hang around and drink some coffee, have made their own cafe, where anyone can drink coffee or have a bite, for free! Why? Because i'll go there, and instead for paying for a coffe, much more than what it is worth, I'll just grab anything i got in the fridge, and give it to the comunity, then somebody else will bring coffee, somebody will leave money. That way there is always things in the fridge, there is always coffee, and the costs are coming in, while at the same time, instead of paying large sums to goverment, new shiny sofas and chairs, new systems for the toilet etc, you get to give free coffee and food, to anyone who wants it or needs it!
When I will teach a poor familys child, whatever I know well enough to teach him, I perform a much bigger service that to just give away some clothes... That kid will grow up and with what I have teached him, he might be able to get a job that will help him and his family improve their life.
I believe I perform service already. I'm not the most active human out there, but when needed, I will give whatever I can. I just do not want any organizations, asking for specific items, or money, to get in the game of helping others. I do not trust them, simple and easy!
Actually, funny story, when I was in elementary school, at times (like for excample the war in Iraq), organizations would come to school, or even not even come, the teachers did the work for them, and say a few words about some people in need, and ask for money, medicins and canned food, "Anything you can". Even though nobody forced you, it was something everyone did. All kids, next day where there with pasta, rice, medicins, clothes, even money. At the same time, in my class there was a girl who had never met her father, she had 4 siblings, and her mother couldn't walk. We did all "help" the poor people being bombed in Iraq, but nobody cared about or classmate... At the same time, in another school, just a few blocks away, the same organization was saying, and expecting the same, from the kids there. In that school, many of the students was living in an orphanage. Again the kids, including those kids from the orphanage, would gather stuff for the noble cause. A few years later, most of those kids, can't get a job, are poor, lack highschool educations and are living among us. Maybe not even having any friends from that school..
Isn't that irony? And if not, then what is it?
I choose not to perform service! I choose to persue education, I choose to help anyone around me. I don't care about Africa. And you know why? Because I can't go there and help my self! Sending a pack of rice, or spending all my money on rice, will not change anything for those people down there... They will still be getting all the garbage from Europe and America, they will never become educated, they will always be slaves, slaves not due to chains, but due to their lach of education, and means to resist.
