Dear Internet, you have been doing a really awesome job in applying your public scrutiny to my giving. It absolutely has been effective. So don’t be hurt when I say sometimes a person wants more than a virtual watchdog. Sometimes, she wants live, person-to-person Peer Pressure.
Tags:How to Give
This is why I create rules: precisely to break them. A buddy on Facebook recently posted this as his status: “Here is a Lent challenge: give and donate blood to the Red Cross before Good Friday.” An excellent challenge! And a sort of annoying one that exposes a major flaw in my Rule to Give [...]
Tags:American Association of Blood Banks·American Red Cross·Give Cash·Where to Give
The how of giving, the transactional bit, is pretty straightforward, right? I write a check to the charity. I hand over a bill to the guy on the street. The End. The only problem is, if it’s so straightforward, why does it take so much effort for me to Actually Do it?
Happily for the Boggled Mind, this answer to the question of what to give is nearly, nearly always the same: Cash. Cat owners all have a tale of their feline friend proudly bestowing on the front stoop a dear gift for their beloved owner, an object skillfully obtained and proffered with all the grace and [...]
You’d think that giving would be pretty straightforward. I’ve got the cash + you’ve got the need + I give it to you = Problem Solved! Yay! Alas, for an effort that is already difficult enough to Actually Do (for me, anyway), giving can be extraordinarily messy. This disappoints the analytical side of my brain, [...]
