You Really Need This

You Really Need This.

Right? It's oh-so-convenient and only thirty dollars. Thirty dollars!

Sure, you could spend thirty dollars this month on another pointless kitchen appliance to add to your Slice-o-Matic vegetable slicer and your iced tea maker. Or you could get a manicure or a fancy set of earbuds that will break just as quickly as the ones you bought for four dollars. Or you could treat yourself to a steak at your favorite place instead of getting the pasta like you always do.

Or you could donate that money to a charity. Find a cause you mildly care about and give your thirty dollars to it. You'd feel good about that, and you'd be helping make the world a better place. Right? And you wouldn't use your charitable act as an excuse to continue to live a life of privilege.

But then again, maybe it would be just a one-off thing so you don't actually have to think about the hard issues. Because when you're that disconnected, you don't have to believe that children are abandoned by their parents, people with curable illnesses die because they can't get to a doctor, and clean water isn't available ten feet away from everybody with a turn of the faucet handle. Those things don't have to be real when you're that disconnected.

Or you could give your thirty dollars to a child this month. And then do the same for that child next month, too. Do this every month so that the child can have shoes and books for school. So that their birthday isn't like all the other days in the year. And you could send them a letter, too. Ask them what their favorite color is and what they like to do during the summer. And a card for when they turn ten. And when they write back, it's like you'll actually know that child, have a relationship with him or her.

Maybe someday you can even go to Bolivia or Uganda or India to visit your child. Because you have the means to make your support mean something.

Don't buy the breakfast sandwich maker. Sponsor a child through Unbound, Save the Children, or Compassion International.* Do it because you won't simply be helping change someone's life; your life will be changed, too. And if we're being honest and if you were actually thinking about buying the sandwich maker, your life probably needs to change.

*All three organizations were graded at least an A by CharityWatch.