I was chatting with a friend the other morning about all the donation drives and fundraisers that seem to happen during the holiday season. Wipe out hunger. Raise money for breast cancer research. Give a tot a toy. Everywhere you turn there is a bell ringing and donation bin at the door.
Don’t get me wrong… I’m all for helping. C’mon, our “Tighty Whities Drives.” Need I say more. But my friend mentioned a personal event that had happened to her on a donation drive. One that had soured her on getting deeply involved in a charity.
She had once been part of the “board” for a growing drive. It was something she believed in… something she wanted to see be successful. But after a few years the drive seemed to lose focus. Now that doesn’t mean that it faltered and faded away. Just the opposite. It grew tremendously. Doubling in size in just a year.
What she meant by “lose focus” was that the people – the drivers behind the drive – lost their purpose. The drive became more of a “look at me” platform then the “how can we help” event that it was intended to be.
And that got me thinking. Sometimes we can get so focused on what we are doing that we forget WHY we are doing it. We forget that the purpose of our quest is not a personal one.
Yes… it can be important to double donations from last year. And yes… it can be a priority to make sure that the fundraiser gets the public attention it needs. But it should never be more important than the purpose of the drive and the people benefiting from it.
We should not be doing this to make ourselves look or feel better. Nor to outdo someone else. We should do these things because WE CAN and WE CARE. Because we want to make a difference and be a better human being today than we were yesterday.
To quote Jessie J… “It ain’t about the money.” (Yes, I went there.) And it ain’t about the fame. It’s about helping others. And no matter how big the road gets, we should always remember WHY we are driving. To help. Because after all, we are all in this great, big world together.
