So there I was feeling pretty good about myself.
I had weathered a 20% cut in hours (meaning pay), and my wife and I had managed to trim some costs by brown-bagging it more, cutting movie channels, letting magazine and pod-cast subscriptions lapse, refinancing the house, being satisfied with our '04 PT Cruiser, and so on.
After all that, and managing to pay all the bills, fund our 401(k)s, and putting a little aside for vacation, I had even finally scraped together $500 for a G12 to replace the G9 that was stolen last year. Was planning on heading to Samys this weekend to pick it up.
Then, yesterday I saw this
and this and thison a blog normally used for political satire: (links only, POTN rules!)Picture One
Picture Two
Picture Three
The blogger captioned them with the sentence
: "And my heart grew three sizes that day."Well, shoot then.
I had just been shamed by a bunch of Afghani youths. Boot to the Head reality check. Not only could I have it a HELL of a lot worse, those who DO have it a hell of a lot worse can still demonstrate compassion for those less fortunate than them. I knew what I had to do. The result is below.
And the challenge is this: Try to beat me. Try to come close. Solo, with a group, with the whole friggin workplace if need be, just try. Please, please, please try.
At the start of this post I said that I had been feeling pretty good about myself. Now I know that it's possible to feel even better. My father taught me about charity, that it doesn't really start to feel good till it hurts. He was right. And with a little time and luck, I suppose that there is a G15 out there with my name on it.
Rad
This has brought tears to my eyes!
My company have an office in Tokyo which, beyond belief, is still operational. There are actually people still going to work there despite everything that has happened. I think that the Japanese people are an amazing nation who have shown the world what it truly means to stand together in a time of need.
There have been so many reports in the media here of donations being made from countries who are tiny and poor and yet they have reached out and tried to make a difference.
Anything that anyone does, no matter how big or how small makes a difference, even if only to raise awareness. It doesn't matter which charity you donate to, just trying to make a difference to help people who are in dire dire need is important.
Thank you Radtech1 for your inspiration. I, along with many others in my company, have donated to a charity that was chosen by our Tokyo office.
