Glass Half Full of Heartache

The very foundation of philanthropic work is a stark contrast of internal emotion out of necessity. Therefore the ability to act on right intentions requires a previously unforeseen balance and resolve that at times seems impossible.

Ok-the "over-worded" introduction has been tossed on the page with as little thought as peeling the blanket off your legs for a bathroom trip in the dead of winter only to return to the couch momentarily, drawing the blanket back up, and returning to your Sex In The City marathon and popcorn.

This is what I am driving at.
For me, wanting to help humans access the very basic of human rights such as health, food, dryness, comfort, etc. came from being exposed to the very need for these items by people all over the globe. "Heartache". On a rudimentary level, you have to weep when exposed to how much we have by birthright in our American nation that is deprived from so many more. "Heartache". You have to feel the appropriate "weight of words" when visual conformation is given to what you have only read about in the past. "Heartache". You have to see muddy feet with no shoes in 35 degree weather.
This heartache becomes the driving force to not just perpetuate the tales, but stop talking about it and start to do something.
Here is the conundrum.
You cannot begin to do something by travelling into these places with a furrowed brow, tears in your eyes, and a dented spirit and expect to have a positive effect.
More often than not you will be politely excused as anybody should that holds the moniker "party-pooper".
They don't need you pity, they don't need your empathy, they have their own.

What you need is a cocktail of desire with an optimism mixer. A true belief that things will get better one act at a time. An understanding that it may not have the dramatic affect you desire but that you are merely putting a very important brick in the foundation of rebuilding, perhaps even a cornerstone.
If you board a plane armed with vigor and arrive in an area that can benefit from your selflessness, you are not going to be eradicating medical issues and hunger, but in your visit you may be positively effecting one person enough to change their lives, and I can tell you this-you won't affect anybody positively with pity, but you can affect thousands through a smile and open hand.

"Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat forever"