Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta was once asked during an interview how did you manage to help so many people? Her reply was: "I just started with one person".
You don't need to look far to find someone who is hungry; sure many people on this orange site may not be hungry of food but I bet there are many who starved of love. It really doesn't take much to offer an ear to someone in this lonely day and age.
Perhaps it's part of my religious background but I personally find that if the foundation of one's life is based on material things, then one is in a constant state of unhappiness. I come from a country that is considered poor but Western standards, however looking back I realize that the West is wealthy yet poor at the same time. Most are just busy worshiping money, sex, status or power. It's like we forgot about our humanity.
So yes, you may not be able to change _the_ world but you can change _one_ world at a time.
Mother Theresa has caused a lot of pain and suffering. She would get world class medical treatment, while people would be dying in severe pain in her hospice and she would tell them some bs about suffering making them great.
They also had poor sanitary practices at the hospices and would contract HIV.
Nice comment. I am in my 50's and a sysadmin for a large corporation. I absolutely love helping people when I can. I am gifted so that I can give. When I'm gone it won't be long before I'm completely forgotten. That's the way it is. Anyone who is finding life too bleak would do well to seek professional help.
> When I'm gone it won't be long before I'm completely forgotten.
_Everyone_ will be completely forgotten. I think the obsession with "legacy" is a fools errand. Making a positive impact yo those around you, big or small, _for the sake of it_ is a more reasonable approach, IMO.
Even the most successful person will be forgotten[1] within a few generations.
1. Forgotten as a person, but possibly reduced to a name and a title without knowing eye color or personality.
I think we're the first generations where this won't be true actually. Micro-documenting your life and opinions, where overtly on Twitter, pseudo-anonymously here, or in emails and countless mobile photos and videos will add historical colour we can only dream of for past generations.
> I think we're the first generations where this won't be true actually
The jury is still out, but I wouldn't bet against entropy. Cloud companies do not yet have a clear guidance on what to do with data belonging to deceased users, but if that data is not profitable, it'll likely be deleted[1]. Phones and NAS devices will end up in the attic or landfill: sure programmer-archeologists of the future may encounter some with partially recoverable files, but most of the present day data will be lost.
1. I missed a payment to a SaaS provider by a week (I was traveling) and irrevocably lost data. When the payments stop due to infirmity or death, the data will be deleted.
You don't need to look far to find someone who is hungry; sure many people on this orange site may not be hungry of food but I bet there are many who starved of love. It really doesn't take much to offer an ear to someone in this lonely day and age.
Perhaps it's part of my religious background but I personally find that if the foundation of one's life is based on material things, then one is in a constant state of unhappiness. I come from a country that is considered poor but Western standards, however looking back I realize that the West is wealthy yet poor at the same time. Most are just busy worshiping money, sex, status or power. It's like we forgot about our humanity.
So yes, you may not be able to change _the_ world but you can change _one_ world at a time.