Work for yourself by working for other; Fight poverty today

Since I joined Yahoo I’ve been wearing a One bracelet. One stands for abolishing world poverty and making it possible for the world’s poorest people to better themselves. Having a constant reminder is a good thing. In the western world, London, or here in Silicon Valley we have it pretty easy. Today is blog action day and I’d like to talk to you about poverty.

It’s been a feature of politics for a long time to suggest that many of the world’s problems are insolvable. This is because many of the those solutions are not popular in the short term. In order to compensate for the treasury deficit of striking third world debt we need raise taxes. Raising taxes has, and I suspect, and will remain the easy target for opposition candidates. As such no politician is willing to attack these hard problems.

This means a large part of the solution has to be down to us, the people. We may not have enough sway over popular opinion to fix political short-termism. However, we can set an example and create calls for action for other regular people. Giving time or money to organisations like One is something that I suspect many people would find surprisingly rewarding.

The main thing I can tell you is in your life considering that helping others is worthwhile may be the most important choice you ever have. Until you’ve tried putting yourself in the service of other you can’t know how much of an impact it also has on yourself.