Play A Game And Help End Global Hunger

Posted on November 20, 2007

“About 25,000 people die each day from hunger or hunger-related causes, most of them children.”

“The United Nations estimates that the cost to end world hunger completely, along with diseases related to hunger and poverty, is about $195 billion a year.”

This is post is about shedding some light on poverty around the world. It is so easy to get wrapped up in our small world and own finances without giving as much as a thought to those who have much less around the world.

The quotes above were provided by an innovative new new site called FreeRice.com(click the banner to check out the site). The site promises to donate grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) for each question correctly answered in a vocabulary game. The non-profit business model will use the money from advertising to buy the grains of rice that are earned by the players. Players get 10 grains of rice for each question that is answered correctly. Yesterday, 170,885,620 grains of rice were earned by the community of players.

I am not sure that the business model is sustainable in its current form or if the statistics are very accurate, but I love the sentiment. Create a site that has intrinsic value for the users by providing fun and learning, increase the conversation about global poverty, and attempt to do something to help. The site is a brainchild of poverty.com’s private owner John Breen. Kudos!

One other intersting note is that “twenty-two developed countries below have pledged to work towards each giving 0.7% (a little less than 1%) of their national income in international aid, which would raise the $195 billion.” The US is one of them. Click here to see a full list and the progress that has been made.

I achieve level 35-40 in the vocab game, if any one is interested. It takes a fair amount of guessing correctly to get that my score that high though.

» Filed Under Food, Giving, Serving Others

Change Your Child’s Genetics By Giving Up The BMW

Posted on October 18, 2007

We recently talked about financially changing your family tree as financial motivation, but for those of us needed some more convincing here is evidence that our decisions about money go much deeper than just dollars and cents. Our choices are crucially importance to our children and this offers early stage evidence that our choices can cover over ‘bad’ genetics.

The researchers “studied 109 children who had been removed from their parents’ care due to reports of abuse or neglect and 87 control children with no reports of abuse or maltreatment.” The children also had two gene polymorphisms that put them at a greater risk for depression. The researchers also assessed each child’s support system and assigned each one a score for their support system quality .

I picked up three import things from the recap of the study. First, the effects of the depression amplifiers only held true for the children who were abused and neglected. Second, children with strong support systems almost completely escaped the effects of the ‘bad’ genes. Third, genes alone weren’t likely to make a child depressed, but maltreatment alone can.

Picture the ‘bad’ genes as little seeds. Give the seeds water polluted with mistreatment and lack of support and the ‘bad’ genes flourish. Nurture them with a safe supportive water and the children could likely overcome the ‘bad’ genes. At least in this small study the age old question of nature versus nurture is answered. Nurture wins .

To me, this is truly amazing! Think about the implications. Does it change how important we view sacrificing the BMW and huge backyard, so that we can have a stay at home spouse. Do you have to work 60 hours a week to support your current lifestyle? Is your debt stressing your relationship with your spouse and your children? Maybe we are sacrificing too much? Maybe we should be giving more time and money to support those willing to adopt and provide supportive homes for maltreated children? Hopefully studies like this help to illuminate which decisions are the truly important ones in life. What do you think?

» Filed Under Children and Money, Living with Purpose, Materialism, Motivation, Serving Others

Change Your Family Tree By Making Solid Financial Decisions

Posted on October 15, 2007

If you have ever listened to Dave Ramsey, there is a good chance you have heard him say “go and change your family tree”. It is a beautiful saying that paints a wonderful backdrop for our motivation to make healthy and wise financial choices. The idea being that the money choices we are responsible for now can and will affect your children and family. These are huge shoes to fills, and they get even bigger when broaden the perspective to grandchildren and great grandchildren.

Let’s not operate out of fear though. Be encouraged by that fact that if you stop your family’s reliance on debt, or align you decisions with your values, or even make wise investment choices, those choices will positively affect your family tree for generations to come. Think about being the grandparent that your great grandchild points to in photo albums and say he is responsible for changing the family’s relationship with money.

You can see that power of this principle at work when a couple’s perspective changes upon hearing that they are pregnant. The ensuing scramble to undo or right their financial ship is often frenetic. Too often those changes die and shrivel, as life, not us, starts to take control again.

The beauty of the saying is that is takes our focus off of us, and gives us something bigger and more wonderful to live for. When we hang on to those types of higher purposes, we receive long lasting sustainable energy. When we are motivated by short sighted and selfish goals, the changes are often short lived.

For those without immediate family, don’t be discouraged either. The trick is to find motivation from goals that are bigger than ourselves, and not on things that lose their appeal when the next new invention or model comes along.

» Filed Under Living with Purpose, Motivation, Serving Others

Principles In Action #1 : Treat Others Like They Have Value

Posted on August 8, 2007

This is the first in a recurring series of posts called “Principles in Action”. The idea is to show positive life principles at work in my life and in the lives of others. The story will illuminate a practical application of a positive life principle and the effect of that principle in action. I welcome any readers to email me(use the contact page) with principle in action stories. If the reader wants and it ties into the theme of The Happy Rock, I will post it to the community so we all can learn and grow.

Treat Others Like They Have Value

Last Monday I was at the check out line of our local Wegman’s grocery store. When the 19 year old check girl asked the normal ‘How are you?’, I decided to actually answer the question rather than mumble something non committal and go about my business. Being the introvert that I am, I often rush through the check out line focused on my life and trying to avoid eye contact as much as possible.

This particular day I shared how my wife and I were packing to leave for a family camping trip to upstate Pennsylvania. As a side note, I often mention my wife and family quickly in the conversation; mostly because I love them and like to talk about them, but also to relieve the male-female tension that can often arise. I think it helped this young girl feel more comfortable, and she opened up about how she had recently returned from vacation with her family in Virginia. We both seemed to enjoy our little conversation, and checking out went by quickly. I, of course, paid cash.

I left feeling positive, and I hope she left feeling valued as a person and as a check out clerk. I didn’t really think anything of it, until I was almost out of the door and the cashier came running after me. I had forgotten a paid for $5 bag of organic grapes. I thanked her, and she ran back to the check out counter.

My question is this: had I not treated her with value, does she run after me? Maybe, maybe not, though I wouldn’t have been surprised if she would have waited for me to come back. I wouldn’t have remembered until I got home and would have lost the $5 for the grapes. What do you think?

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» Filed Under Principles In Action, Serving Others

Our time is not our own……but it can be

Posted on May 3, 2007

Time for the second law : Unmanaged Time Comes under the Influence of the Dominant People in my World

Intuitive, you bet! If I don’t have a plan for my time, then every phone call, email, meeting request, and lunch date can take time away from the tasks I truly desire to accomplish. For example, if my best time for accomplishing work is the early morning, then I should schedule that time for myself. When your my good friend calls the night before and asks if I want to go to breakfast, I can confidently respond with “I already have something in that time slot, but I would love to grab a bite at lunch”. Effectively, since my time was already budgeted, I can make conscious decisions about the priories i want set for my time. Without that time blocked off I may have accepted the invite and totally enjoyed myself, only to realize that it took me 4-5 hours that afternoon to do what I could have done in 2.

It also helps to remember that the word dominant here doesn’t have to be a negative term. It refers to anyone who has a valid claim on our time: parents, children, spouse, co-workers, friends, etc. Not budgeting our own time can often lead to undue resentment towards these dominant people in our lives. We unjustly view them as keeping us from our goals. In reality it is my own problem, since I should be in charge of my time. Ultimately, the desire shouldn’t be cut people off and live a self-centered life, but we should be willing to consciously submit our time, even our best time, to those people that are important to us. Budgeting your time will hopefully allow us to serve them better by making us more discerning, productive, efficient, and happy.

- The Happy Rock

» Filed Under Productivity, Serving Others, Time Management