|
|
|
|
Welcome to Week 53 of Be the Change!
No matter your capacity for giving, it's imperative that you think carefully about how to donate--whether it's to one nonprofit or another; a political campaign or political action committee; or somewhere else. We often spend more time considering what Netflix movie to watch next than we do about how to maximize the good we do with our time and treasure. In this week's essay, I explore that crucial question: what's the best way to spend our limited dollars to do the most good for people and planet? I also share my latest poem, Windows.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyone interested in maximizing social good must wrestle with an essential question: given a limited amount of money to contribute to various causes, what is the most effective allocation of those dollars? For whether one is able to donate $100 or $1 billion, the impact of the giving can range from harmful to neutral to transformational. How do we increase …
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Windows
I wish to sit by the window and read—but not
outside, where UV rays intrude, and wildfire
smoke, and gunfire, and bird-shit dropped
|
at random. In my mind’s eye the outdoors
wounds but does not break the skin, like
the nip of a puppy as opposed to a hornet's
|
sting or attack-dog’s bite. Still, even here
the doorbell rings, my son asks to play, the
ground quakes, the computer dings insistently—
|
everything conspires against this book, for what
profit is there in poetry? In the book of life
there is a to-do list: prepare your will, chisel
|
a quote for the tombstone, stuff your resume with
achievement, that the mourners have much to praise.
What time to read? To sleep? And when, at last, I doze
|
off, I dream my eyes are windows, the willows
are eyelashes, the clouds eyebrows: If I do not
hurt myself, what can shatter me here?
|
|
|
|
Thanks for reading. Have a wonderful Labor Day!
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
