White Man's Burden

When recycling your waste carefully separated into paper or plastic, wearing your sibling's had-me-downs or simply donating clothes to Salvation Army aren't enough.... What is the grand gesture you're looking for to satisfy the "warm glow" appetite?

Perhaps my paper on crowding out moral and social incentives to do good for the sake of doing good wasn't convincing enough. The reviews were great, but the whole time while composing it, I felt like I was cheating... One of those unwavering feelings that you don't believe your own writing, but you keep at it just because the point is clear and you'll get a good grade on it. 

"In our theory, the variable that does cause a significant hypothetical effect [...] is guilt," is what I wrote. How does one cope with guilt?  Despite what Obama and Bernanke (Times' Person of the Year! Didn't you hear?) advocate, consumption may be beneficial to some in the immediate, short run, but it is harmful to most in the long run. Over-consumption, overspending, overachieving: all words with a heavy negative connotation. Yet, this is what everyone - i.e. from your next-door neighbor to the government, the nation, the world - expects you to do. 

There should be a "How-to-Sleep-at-Night-while-Children-in-the-Third-World-are-Starving for Dummies" survival guide. I'm sorry to disappoint but I don't have the answer. I deeply admire people who passionately believe they do in one form or the other, and they follow their beliefs, realizing their potential to the fullest. Change from within, however, takes guts. No, it takes more than that. It asks for complete and utter dedication to the brink of insane conviction of the means justifying the ends, of good triumphing over evil... My disillusioned childhood drenched with teenage skepticism might have ruined me for the job, but how I often dream of being born an idealist. How much more faith I would have had in human intrinsic ability and potential to do good, to be good (however you may wish to define it). 

Many success stories to be told and many more failed attempts, lessons learned and unlearned for the sake of remaining optimistic. In the end, it's about being content where you are, doing what you do. Success is illusory and only measured by nobody else's standards but your own.