My Blog Action Day post

I think I’ve bitten off more than I can chew.

When I heard about Blog Action Day, I instantly wanted to get involved. I wanted to join the thousands of bloggers writing about poverty today. And I started writing a paragraphs on how modern society has got the wrong priorities, and the virtues of Fairtrade and the ‘Big Issue.’

Then I thought, who am I kidding?

The truth is many of the other blog posts that will form part of this day of action will be far more insightful, and probably written by people who are actively fighting poverty. This makes me feel very small, because I know that so much of the way I live my life is short-sighted and selfish. I don’t do enough to fight poverty, either through fear, greed or apathy. I don’t give money to homeless people because I find them intimidating; I don’t tithe my earnings because I’d rather have a bit saved up for a rainy day; I don’t participate in activities aimed at reducing poverty because I feel like I don’t have the time or energy.

I’m hoping that, by being honest, anyone who reads this will think, ‘thank goodness, I’m not the only one,’ and not, ‘God, what a selfish cow.’ If you do think the latter, I am trying. I try to buy Fairtrade goods as much as I can to support the initiative of allowing people to work their way out of poverty, I sometimes buy the ‘Big Issue’ (not often admittedly) and I do give some money to charity. I give to and buy from charity shops, and try to avoid cheap fashion because you never know how they’ve cut their costs. I try to reduce my carbon footprint, aware that the people most adversely affected by climate change are very often the poorest. These are all achievable little things, and I know I should do more.

So, for my Blog Action Day post, I ask you to leave a comment suggesting another action I can take. If this day is about anything it’s about sharing ideas, and it seems I need more than I can share. So please leave a comment. Thank you.