A neighbor of mine recently had the courage to question whether he really cared enough about the people of Haiti to send money. Or would he be making a contribution out of guilt?

I was so stunned by Gene Burnett’s honesty and the highly conscious yet simple process he developed to check his motivations that I’m passing on this excerpt from the email he sent to his friends. [I broke his text into shorter paragraphs and added a bit of punctuation.]

“Dear Friends,
“Here’s an email from my friend Marian regarding what you can do for the people of Haiti. This organization seems on the level and doing great work. I just made a donation myself.

“Here’s a little side story:
“I was sitting around talking with Samarra and I started talking about how we all naturally are constantly organizing and prioritizing the constant torrents of information that we are offered from the world. We have to really. It is not possible to give equal weight to everything that is happening. We have to favor some info, forget, ignore or prioritize as “low” other info. We can’t “care” equally about everything except intellectually. We can pretend to “care” about everything but not really.

“As an example, I said, if that earthquake had happened in New York, or Chicago, or Portland, or Ashland (progressively closer to home), I would naturally ‘care’ more and more about the effects on people. But realistically, to be totally honest, I said, ‘I just don’t care about the people of Haiti, not enough to give them any money.’

“Interestingly, though, the minute I said this out loud, a shift happened in me and I did care enough to give them some money. So rather than pretending that I care, or ‘caring’ out of some guilty feeling that I should care, I prefer what I would term a more Taoist approach, which is to care if I care, don’t care if I don’t care, but to be honest about it, recognizing that when I am honest, I may change.

“So here’s my request of you:
“Think about making a relief donation, and, if you would like to but seriously can’t afford it, say it out loud.

“If you honestly care, but not enough to make a donation, say that out loud.

“If you honestly don’t care and don’t want to make a donation, say that out loud.

“”And, if you do care and would like to make a donation, consider the Mercy Corps link below.
Thanks,
GB”

I’ve been impressed by Gene’s honest, Taoist approach to life ever since I heard him sing his fun/serious Taoist “anthem” last Thanksgiving. (See my Dec. 1 post: http://www.whyworryguide.com/2009/12/love-your-body%E2%80%94or-how-to-slow-aging-and-help-humanity-at-the-same-time/) Gene’s a prolific singer/songwriter and a teacher of Qigong. Learn more–and download some great songs–at http://www.geneburnett.com/Media/music.asp.

And about that suggestion of a relief organization: Mercy Corps is one of the nonprofits I’ve contributed to, and I second the endorsement given it by Gene’s friend, Marian. To quote Marian about Mercy Corps:

“They’re a 4 star charity, at least 89% of donated funds go directly toward relief, and they’re primary focus is disaster relief.  They’ve got teams in place in Haiti, some great ideas, and are already working to help the situation.”

Here’s the link to Mercy Corps’ Haiti donation page:
https://donate.mercycorps.org/donation.htm?DonorIntent=Haiti+Earthquake&Custom15=E404&Custom16=captiontext

Any thoughts you have about honest caring and giving?