Thursday Thirteen...Make a Difference

13 Ways to Make a Difference- One Day at a Time



I was reading Insanity Prevails today and got wrapped up in the discussion of what to do with the homeless. I was reminded of a book I got for Christmas called "365 Ways to Change the World " by Michael Norton. It offers a small way to make a difference every day. Here are my favorites so far.

1. Don't be frightened by failure: Do something and try your best to succeed. But even if you don't, you will have shown that you care enough to want to do something, you will probably have made some difference, and you will have learned a lot from the experience-which you can put into practice next time.
2. Make Amends. Pick up the phone, write a letter, or send an email to someone you have hurt, or some one you have lost contact with. It doesn't matter whether it was your fault or theirs that you are no longer speaking. It doesn't matter if they choose not to respond. You've taken the first step.
3. Enjoy the taste of doing good. Buy and drink fair-trade coffee. The higher price will help small farmers. When you buy coffee in a coffee shop, the coffee cost about 8 cents. The consumer will be paying $1.50 and up. The grower will get only 3 cents of this, even at fair-trade prices. ( Starbucks is a fair-trade coffee participant!)
4. Visit the Hunger Site daily and trigger a donation. It will cost you nothing, but you will be feeding a hungry person. There is a facility on the site for you to be sent a reminder each day and consequently you will be feeding two hungry people.
5. Develop a start-up routine for your computer that automatically gets your computer (or all the computers in your office ) to visit the Hunger Site each morning and trigger a donation.
6. Tell all your friends. There is a facility on the site to do this, or you can send an e-card also provide by the hunger site.
7. Subscribe to the Idea-a-day website and receive an idea a day. This should set you thinking about things you could do to change the world. Then come up with your very own brilliant idea-and submit it.
8. Money talks so give it a voice. People pay attention to money and red ink. So use red ink to put messages on your money, which will be passed from person to person as the money is spent. Write around the edges: Some suggestions: Over 1 billion people have to survive on less than a dollar a day or Across the the wold, 842 million people will go to bed hungry tonight.
9. Transform some one's outlook: donate you old eyeglasses. Unite for Sight distributes donated reading and distance glasses and also nonprescription sunglasses to children and adults in Africa, Asia,and Latin America. Reading glasses and sunglasses are especially needed.
   
10. Give Blood, and save a life.If you are able to, give blood. Do it regularly. Call up your local hospital or a national blood transfusion service for details and locations.
11. Switch off the Internet and get a life. The Internet can glue us to our computers monitors and isolate us from our fellow human beings. Turn your computer off for one day a week, leave your laptop at home, get out int the real world-make a difference.
12. Design a machine for turning seawater into drinking water. Of all the earth's water, 97% is saltwater found in oceans and seas; 2% is frozen. Only 1% of the earth's water is available for drinking. Your invention could transform the world!
13. Give up Apathy. If the sheer weight of the world's problems induce apathy and you don't know where to direct your energies (assuming you have any) there is a website just for you. The Anti-Apathy movement starts with the idea that we should all be engaged in doing something for a better world. Check it out here.
    

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