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Legacy accounting: Will you have been an asset or a liability on the world's balance sheet?
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Ryan Lilly
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When we donate to a good cause, it “says” to our associates, “Look, I’m willing to spend my resources for the benefit of others. I’m playing a positive-sum, cooperative game with society.” This helps explain why generosity is so important for those who aspire to leadership. No one wants leaders who play zero-sum, competitive games with the rest of society. If their wins are our losses, why should we support them? Instead we want leaders with a prosocial orientation, people who will look out for us because we’re all in it together.
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Kevin Simler (The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life)
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With every heart beat we live to see the sunset, with each drop of blood donated; another precious life will live to see the sunrise.
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Wayne Chirisa
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blaming people is absolutely the worst way to motivate them. Make someone ashamed to their core, tell them that their very being is inimical to life and the best thing they could do for the planet is die, then ask if they want to make a donation?
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Paul Murray (The Bee Sting)
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Use the information you’ve been given as an individual, but NEVER let what you’ve heard or read or experienced in the past prevent you from answering the call on your life.
You are responsible for your life. That includes the voice inside you and everything it calls you to do. Don’t ignore that voice to follow rules that don’t fit. When a jacket doesn’t fit anymore, it’s time to donate it. Same principle applies for rules which no longer serve you.
You don’t have to curse the rules or condemn them. In fact, there might be someone else who would benefit from them at the exact moment you no longer need them.
Just step into all that you can be and all that you can do.
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Stephen Lovegrove (How to Find Yourself, Love Yourself, & Be Yourself: The Secret Instruction Manual for Being Human)
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When we notice someone suffering and immediately decide to help them, it “says” to our associates, “See how easily I’m moved to help others? When people near me are suffering, I can’t help wanting to make their situation better; it’s just who I am.” This is a profoundly useful trait to advertise; it means you’ll make a great ally. The more time other people spend around you, the more they’ll get to partake of your spontaneous good will. It’s this function of charity that accounts for a lot of the puzzles we discussed earlier. For one, it explains why we donate so opportunistically. Most donors don’t sketch out a giving strategy and follow through as though it were a business plan.
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Kevin Simler (The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life)
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Selfless help conquers homelessness.
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Martin Ugwu
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We, human beings don't always need an intelligent mind that speaks, but a patient heart that listens. Supportive relationships are very much needed. Know that, the small acts of kindness can be as powerful as very big donations.
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Jyoti Patel (The Mystic Soul)
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In my opinion, donating money is a wrong kind of help. It will make a person lose the motivation to be thrifty and diligent, and become lazy, unpredictable, and unaccountable. More importantly, when you give alms to a person, you deny his dignity, and if you deny his dignity, you take away his destiny, which is extremely immoral in my opinion. As a rich man, I have the responsibility to be a messenger for the benefit of mankind, but I cannot be the initiator of making lazy people.
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G. Ng (The 38 Letters from J.D. Rockefeller to His Son: Perspectives, Ideology, and Wisdom)
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GiveWell.org reviews hundreds of charities and provides recommendations to donors about which organizations will save the most lives per dollar donated. The website EffectiveAnimalActivism.org was launched in 2012 to provide similar advice for donors wanting to support animal protection causes.
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Nick Cooney (Veganomics: The Surprising Science on What Motivates Vegetarians, from the Breakfast Table to the Bedroom)
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The 9/11 attacks activated several of these group-related adaptations in my mind. The attacks turned me into a team player, with a powerful and unexpected urge to display my team’s flag and then do things to support the team, such as giving blood, donating money, and, yes, supporting the leader.31 And my response was tepid compared to the hundreds of Americans who got in their cars that afternoon and drove great distances to New York in the vain hope that they could help to dig survivors out of the wreckage, or the thousands of young people who volunteered for military service in the following weeks. Were these people acting on selfish motives, or groupish motives? The rally-round-the-flag reflex is just one example of a groupish mechanism.
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Jonathan Haidt (The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion)
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fact, the vast majority of weekly churchgoers are socially well-adjusted and successful across a broad range of outcomes. Compared to their secular counterparts, religious people tend to smoke less,16 donate and volunteer more,17 have more social connections,18 get and stay married more,19 and have more kids.20 They also live longer,21 earn more money,22 experience less depression,23 and report greater happiness and fulfillment in their lives.24
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Kevin Simler (The Elephant in the Brain: Hidden Motives in Everyday Life)
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Each person must decide for himself what his obligations are to his respective friends, family, and community. Before donating his time and money to those outside his immediate family and close circle of friends, he must decide what he can afford, without depriving those closest to him. When taking these things into consideration he must be certain to include himself among those who mean most to him. He must carefully evaluate the validity of the request and the personality or motives of the person asking it of him.
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Anton Szandor LaVey (The Satanic Bible)
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General feelings of well-being and psychological satisfaction are linked to stronger resistance to common cold viruses, quicker recovery from illnesses (including cancer), and longer lives. When you feel better, your energy will increase; you will sleep better, eat better, and have more (and better) sex. People who have stronger feelings of well-being are perceived as more social, demonstrate more creativity, and tend to be well liked. Happy people more frequently donate their time to help those in need and are more likely to be optimistic about the future
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Bobby Hoffman (Hack Your Motivation: Over 50 Science-based Strategies to Improve Performance)
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In the 1970s, researchers conducted a study that pitted a moral incentive against an economic incentive. In this case, they wanted to learn about the motivation behind blood donations. Their discovery: when people are given a small stipend for donating blood rather than simply being praised for their altruism, they tend to donate less blood. The stipend turned a noble act of charity into a painful way to make a few dollars, and it wasn’t worth it.
What if the blood donors had been offered an incentive of $50, or $500, or $5,000? Surely the number of donors would have changed dramatically.
But something else would have changed dramatically as well, for every incentive has its dark side. If a pint of blood were suddenly worth $5,000, you can be sure that plenty of people would take note. They might literally steal blood at knifepoint. They might pass off pig blood as their own. They might circumvent donation limits by using fake IDs. Whatever the incentive, whatever the situation, dishonest people will try to gain an advantage by whatever means necessary.
Or, as W. C. Fields once said: a thing worth having is a thing worth cheating for.
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Steven D. Levitt (Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything)
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While writing this book, I discovered that there is a field of study called “disaster theory.” A lot of the work in this area explores self-interested motivations. In the United States, for instance, presidents are more likely to declare national disasters during election years, and battleground states get more donations than others; money allocated to address disasters is used as an inducement and a reward.
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Paul Bloom (Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion)
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Happiness, love and truth are not products. Stop purchasing them, start donating them.
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Efrat Cybulkiewicz
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How Much Money Can We Afford To Give To Charity? Knowing how much money you can safely give to charity is challenging for everyone. Who doesn’t want to give more to make the world a better place? On the other hand, no one wants to become a charity case as a result of giving too much to charity. On average, Americans who itemize their deductions donate about three or four percent of their income to charity. About 20% give more than 10% of their income to charity. Here are some tips to help you find the right level of donations for your family: You can probably give more than you think. Focus on one, two or maybe three causes rather than scattering money here and there. Volunteer your time toward your cause, too. The money you give shouldn’t be the money you’d save for college or retirement. You can organize your personal finances to empower you to give more. Eliminating debt will enable you to give much more. The interest you may be paying is eating into every good and noble thing you’d like to do. You can cut expenses significantly over time by driving your cars for a longer period of time; buying cars—the transaction itself—is expensive. Stay in your home longer. By staying in your home for a very long time, your mortgage payment will slowly shrink (in economic terms)with inflation, allowing you more flexibility over time to donate to charity. Make your donations a priority. If you only give what is left, you won’t be giving much. Make your donations first, then contribute to savings and, finally, spend what is left. Set a goal for contributing to charity, perhaps as a percentage of your income. Measure your financial progress in all areas, including giving to charity. Leverage your contributions by motivating others to give. Get the whole family involved in your cause. Let the kids donate their time and money, too. Get your extended family involved. Get the neighbors involved. You will have setbacks. Don’t be discouraged by setbacks. Think long term. Everything counts. One can of soup donated to a food bank may feed a hungry family. Little things add up. One can of soup every week for years will feed many hungry families. Don’t be ashamed to give a little. Everyone can do something. When you can’t give money, give time. Be patient. You are making a difference. Don’t give up on feeding hungry people because there will always be hungry people; the ones you feed will be glad you didn’t give up. Set your ego aside. You can do more when you’re not worried about who gets the credit. Giving money to charity is a deeply personal thing that brings joy both to the families who give and to the families who receive. Everyone has a chance to do both in life. There Are Opportunities To Volunteer Everywhere If you and your family would like to find ways to volunteer but aren’t sure where and how, the answer is just a Google search away. There may be no better family activity than serving others together. When you can’t volunteer as a team, remember you set an example for your children whenever you serve. Leverage your skills, talents and training to do the most good. Here are some ideas to get you started either as a family or individually: Teach seniors, the disabled, or children about your favorite family hobbies.
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Devin D. Thorpe (925 Ideas to Help You Save Money, Get Out of Debt and Retire a Millionaire So You Can Leave Your Mark on the World!)
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Here’s what my one-time behavior looks like when you break it down. Behavior (B): Donating via text to the Red Cross. Motivation (M): I wanted to help the victims of a devastating disaster. Ability (A): It was easy to reply to a text message. Prompt (P): I was prompted by a text message from the Red Cross.
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B.J. Fogg (Tiny Habits: The Small Changes That Change Everything)
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It’s not that all rewards at all times are bad. For instance, when the Italian government gave blood donors paid time off work, donations increased.15 The law removed an obstacle to altruism. So while a few advocates would have you believe in the basic evil of extrinsic incentives, that’s just not empirically true. What is true is that mixing rewards with inherently interesting, creative, or noble tasks—deploying them without understanding the peculiar science of motivation—is a very dangerous game. When used in these situations, “if-then” rewards usually do more harm than good. By neglecting the ingredients of genuine motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose—they limit what each of us can achieve.
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Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
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Life should not be measured by duration alone but by donation also, by what you do during your lifetime.
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Mensah Oteh (Unlocking Life's Treasure Chest: Wisdom keys to keep you inspired, encouraged, motivated and focused)
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how people spend their money may be at least as important as how much money they earn. In particular, spending money on other people (buying flowers for your spouse rather than a bauble for yourself) or on a cause (donating to a religious institution rather than going for an expensive haircut) can actually increase our subjective well-being.
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Daniel H. Pink (Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us)
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A journey towards a mirage never ends.”
“Sharing knowledge is a charity of knowledge that constitutes the ways of a beautiful life.”
"A click of a smile donates the sweetness of love and beautifies the world."
"Learn to admire others; it is the first step to overcome your ego."
"Become a motivator of writing, not the butcher of it; similarly, become an editor, not the copy editor.
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Ehsan Sehgal
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Whatever accumulated wealth is in surplus of their needs, good people donate it for good causes; Karna, Bali, Vikramaditya, these kings are even remembered today due to their charity; the honey-bees store up honey, and then some honey-collector takes all the accumulated honey away; neither did the honey-bees themselves enjoy their stored up honey, nor did they give it in charity; all they do now is rub both their legs in regret.
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Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
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There is nothing greater than love invested in helping to feed the impoverished living in hunger.
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Wayne Chirisa
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Charity transforms both giver and receiver for the better. It is rightly described as a virtue. Fundraising or donating to charity and all the other variations on that theme are something else: a tangle of mixed motivations and results, some good, some questionable.
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Ronan Hession (Leonard and Hungry Paul)
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to stay motivated: give money to a friend or family member with instructions to return it to you upon completion of your goal within a given time frame, or donate it to an organization you dislike if you fail.
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Cory Althoff (The Self-Taught Programmer: The Definitive Guide to Programming Professionally)
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Oil on water, a secret shared with an evil person, a donation given to a worthy recipient, and scriptures in the possession of an aware person; these on their own gain expansion, due to their inherent strengths.
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Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
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Useless is rain to the sea, useless is food to the satiated, useless is a donation to the rich, and useless is a lamp to the sun.
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Rajen Jani (Old Chanakya Strategy: Aphorisms)
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A charitable donation resembles shared strength and brings renewed hope to a vulnerable community.
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Wayne Chirisa
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Motivation for moral behaviour and pro-social cooperative response has to come from somewhere else. In poor countries like Pakistan, people with surplus resources are engaging in charity, donations, and volunteering. Empirical evidence in Pakistan in multiple research studies has found that faith is the biggest motivation behind charitable donations and it encapsulates and is associated with other humane motives. This trend is also seen in other parts of the world. But, economics is largely silent and irrelevant when it comes to exchange, allocation and distribution of economic resources outside of markets.
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Salman Ahmed Shaikh (Reflections on the Origins in the Post COVID-19 World)
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There sits the meditator parked on a little cushion. Is she out donating blood? No. Is she busy working with disaster victims? No. But let us examine her motivation. Why is she doing this? The meditator’s intention is to purge her own mind of anger, prejudice, and ill will, and she is actively engaged in the process of getting rid of greed, tension, and insensitivity. Those are the very items that obstruct her compassion for others. Until they are gone, any good works that she does are likely to be just an extension of her own ego, and of no real help in the long run. Harm in the name of help is one of the oldest games.
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Henepola Gunaratana (Mindfulness in Plain English)
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Yochai Benkler likens cultural creation to blood drives: the quality of donations increases when organizers stop paying.12 “Remember, money isn’t always the best motivator,” Benkler said, reiterating the point during a TED Talk touching on similar themes. “If you leave a fifty dollar check after dinner with friends, you don’t increase the probability of being invited back. And if dinner isn’t entirely obvious, think of sex.
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Anonymous