Giving While Living

My phone has been beeping non-stop since Saturday evening as every acquaintance and friend put forth their well wishes for the new lunar moon. Sure, I did my fair share of helping A.K. grow his wealth that lil bit more by sending out mass text messages. But in all honesty, I reckon I could have done a lil bit more.

For the dollars I spent on it, I could have:

1. Bought a homeless person a hot meal this morning
   
2. Bought a new t-shirt for a child from a poor family
   
3. Paid for a taxi-cab fare for the lady at the bus-stop, trailing 4 kids
   

My list could go on, but you get the drift. And I think that shall be what I do today instead of putting money tokens into lil red packets for people.

For as Andrew Carnegie said in his essay of 1889: Wealth - 

Under its sway we shall have an ideal state, 

in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, 

in the best sense, the property of the many, 

because administered for the common good; 

and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, 

can be made a much more potent force 

for the elevation of our race 

than if it had been distributed in 

small sums to the people themselves.

Let us not wait till we're one foot in the grave before we start thinking of helping others along their way.