You can be a benefactor only if you have a lot of free time or money. This myth is still full of power, but we will try to bust it. Our journalist was doing good deeds for a month in order to spend a minimum of time and money on them – and that’s what happened.
MY PLAN
Do you happen to be so charged and enthusiastic that you want to share your energy with the world and make it better? Good deeds, charity, volunteering – all this seems to be an integral part of everyone’s life. But later, when you start thinking about how to apply all that enthusiasm, the flames inside seem to go out. “What can I do? And what if my participation is very small and invisible? I don’t have enough money to help someone.” All these voices of doubt can convincingly reject good deeds.
Due to the lack of culture of charitable giving, a lot of unnecessary thoughts and lack of ideas, we often forget that even small steps are the beginning of a great path. So, I decided to do an experiment. The plan was to do good deeds that did not require much effort and sacrifice for a month.
That same evening, a check from Silpo predicted, “Believe in yourself and everything will work out.” Well, this cannot be ignored.
THE FIRST WEEK
Become a donor
Enthusiastic, I decided from the beginning not to restrain myself and donate blood as a donor. In our progressive times, doing this is quite simple – for example, you can just contact Blood Agents project. I was invited to a chat, where they provided all the necessary information, told me about counter-indications and lavished attentions on me. Wednesday at 8 am I was already in Okhmatdyt clinic waiting for my turn. Since this is not the first time I have donated blood, I did not care at all – it is quite fast, not painful and even useful. The only thing that bothered me was always low my hemoglobin as for a donor. They took blood from my finger right on the spot for analysis, and for five minutes, I was mentally plucking off the petals of a chamomile, “They will take my blood, they won’t, they will, they won’t…”
Already in the office, the doctor looked at me mysteriously and said: “Well, let’s have some wine? Oh, wait, you can’t… You have to donate the blood first!” All the department was celebrating. And it doesn’t matter that in the process I began to lose consciousness – I was quickly brought back to consciousness.
The feeling that I had saved someone’s life with my blood (and also passed an HIV and hepatitis test for free) prevailed over everything else. I took my badge with the blood component, that the Agents donate to successful donors and went home.
I did a good job. I had to rest that day.
Share food
During the experiment, I was constantly thinking, “What else I can do?” So, when I was cooking dinner, the most obvious thing that came to my mind was to make a few servings not just for myself. The menu was unpretentious – buckwheat porridge, boiled chicken fillet and pickles. Like at my grandma when I was a child. And some bread, for sure. I packed everything – one portion in a reusable tray, two in disposable containers, which I had already washed and put in sorted plastic. And I went outside to look for people who needed it.
I didn’t have to look for a long time – I live near Ploshcha Lva Tolstoho metro station, and there are a lot of homeless people in the underground there. By the way, they were very grateful for the dinner, although first, they looked with some disbelief. In fact, it was a little scary and awkward to approach them, because I did not have a very pleasant personal experience of communicating with the homeless. So, I had to agree with myself to do it. People can behave unpredictably and refuse help at all – I knew about it and I was ready.
Do a favor
I wrote, “My name is Tetiana, I live in apartment 46. Twice a week I go to the grocery store – if any of you, dear neighbors, can’t do it for some reason, I’ll be happy to help you. My phone number is ___.”
I placed this announcement on a special board near the elevator, expecting that now the requests will overwhelm me and I will die somewhere along the way under the weight of food packages for all the residents of my building. However, nobody was calling for three days, until an old woman from the third floor approached me. She said that someone dropped my ad in the chat house in Viber, and that’s how those who really don’t leave their apartment – ad thus can’t see the board near the elevator – learned about it. “Hmm, that sounds legitimate, I didn’t take that into account.” So, the neighbor asked to do shopping for her and then was thanking me multiple times.
At the end of the week, I wanted a less active format of doing good deeds, so I resorted to a lazy, but also important task – to talk about their good deeds on social networks. I chose the topic of donation for my post. I described why it is important and where to start with. For some, it’s boasting like, “Look, I’m great!” but others will understand my message – that’s how you can inspire others to take action.
THE SECOND WEEK
The enthusiasm has faded a bit, but on Tuesday I received text message from Okhmatdyt clinic where I donated blood, “Tetiana, today your blood saved live! Thank you and are waiting for you again!”
Such messages are worth waking up in the morning. It gave me the strength to continue.
This week has become a week of saving clothes. I looked carefully and skeptically at everything in my closet, and put away much of my clothes. There were things I never wore, things that I stopped wearing, and those that became too large for me after I lose weight. Some of them still had value in my eyes, so I decided to sell them online!
I chose Instagram as a platform. It’s simple: photo of a thing, size, price. So, in one evening I sold out almost everything.
This action has many useful aspects. There is also an environmental dimension in it, because you don’t put anything into garbage, you help people get new clothes for peanuts, and you also earn money for yourself. That’s small money, but still they will used for good deeds.
I packed the remaining things and put a sticker with a word “clothes” on the package. I left the package near the garbage cans. I don’t know if anything came of it, but the next day it was gone, while the garbage hasn’t been taken out yet. One day after such an action, I saw a homeless man in my sweatshirt near my building. My feelings were mixed, but mostly I was feeling good about it.
I don’t think it should be taken as a separate good deed, but this act is no less important. We don’t communicate very well with my mother – it just happened so. I usually talk to my father, and he tells her important information from me. But my mother loves me and it’s mutual, she appreciates a lot when I call her. And while it is difficult for us to talk and sometimes it seems that we live in different worlds, I do make calls to her. I listen to advice, sometimes I get annoyed, but I restrain myself. Because this is my mother. Call your parents, it’s important to them.
THE THIRD WEEK
Coffee and cleaning up your own planet
When I was ordering takeaway coffee at the beginning of the week, I recalled a great European tradition of suspended food and drinks. In fact, you pay in advance for the order of a person who will come after you. So, I chose the most popular latte, paid for it, and said, “Can you please not do it now, but make it for the next customer for free?” Ironically, the barista immediately realized what I meant, smiled at me and gave me candy. Oh, I also got some profit from it.
While I was running my experiment during the lockdown, and the garbage sorting station Ukraine without Garbage was closed then, I continued to wash, separate and put garbage in separate bins. All these treasures do not take up much space, do not have an unpleasant odor, so you can wait for the opening of the station. But the planet cannot wait, it must be saved by all means here and now.
One evening, I was returning home and once again noticed that the floor in the hallway was dirty. I winced, I thought to myself, “Well, is it so difficult to act like humans,” and stopped. I can fix it! I armed myself with a broom, mop and detergent – and in an hour and a half, I made the floor shine. If you thought that the neighbors – like in many emotional movies – rushed to help me with mops, this did not happen. Well, but I’m proud of myself.
And traditionally, at the end of the week I chose a less active charity format. I sent a text saying, “Hi there! Today is such a wonderful and sunny day, I wish you a wonderful time and mentally hugging you” to 50 lucky people from my contact list. Almost immediately, I began to receive answers with the same warm wishes.
That’s double benefit – I cheered up the recipients, and they poured pleasures on me in return. Good deeds are cool.
THE FOURTH WEEK OR “SOMETHING WENT WRONG”
From the very beginning of the last week of the experiment, I couldn’t find a place for myself and tried hard to come up with ideas for the next good deeds. It seemed that I was even ready to run outside looking for an old woman whom I could help cross the road, or a child who needs to be rescued from under the wheels of a car.
Since I did not come up with any idea on the first day, I woke up on the second day with a sense of guilt. To somehow justify myself, I sent UAH 200 to Tabletochki foundation and was able to take a breather. It seemed as if good deeds had ceased to bring pleasure.
The next day, I complained to my friend and she told me about the words “inflict good.” This is when a person continues to help by force, even if no one needs it. This can happen for many reasons – guilt, desire to look better, obsessive social ideas, and so on. It is better to stop in time and understand the limit when your own resources are not enough to share them.
CONCLUSION
In terms of money, I spent UAH 450 on good deeds. This is food for the homeless, payment for text messages, coffee, donation to the foundation. At the same time, I earned UAH 800 on the clothes I sold, so in fact, I was in the black.
In time equivalent, I spent about 10.5 hours during the month on everything. But what I bought in return is priceless.
