Doing charity

One thing I never understood about flag days is the stickers that they give out.

I mean, the stickers are pretty ugly when pasted on the shirts or on bags.

For some people, the stickers mean 'immunity'. Don't come and bug me to donate since I've donated already.

For another group of people, the stickers are just another thing to irritate them and they just can't wait to get it off them. All these stickers will be pasted all over the rubbish bin or just casually disposed. AH. Encourages littering.

Perhaps the only advantage to this sticker thing is probably it serves as a plaything for little kids. And yes, it will arouse their interest in community work and donating to charitable organisations.

I have this good friend, Dickson who will casually donate 2, 5 dollars or sometimes 10 dollars to the blind music performers at Orchard or stuff the note into that little miserable coin box of schoolkids.
Another good friend, Wenjie, simply throws all his coins that he has in his pockets to the boxes when approached by enthusiatic volunteers or volunteereds.
My stand is pretty much donate when I feel like it and when I feel like a good person. OK. That's rubbish.

I recall the education system has moulded their co-cirricular program hand in hand with community work. The stupid PEARLS system in JC means we have to reluctantly clock our community service time. Same goes in secondary school when you join the uniform groups.

I remember the times when I was in NPCC, we were helping out in this Home of the Mentally Disabled at Bishan. Schoolkids and as juvenile as we were, we never took anything seriously and we were even laughing at some of the silly actions of the patients. Naming them after some soccer players and have a great joke about it. We really learned nothing. We just wanted to kill time.

I am so ashamed of myself.

In the past, big-scale charity shows like the President Star's Charity Show was a must watch. Comprises of so many big shots from overseas and dare-devil stunts by local artistes. It was pretty new those days and people were all touched. It was all sincere and come on, it was a once-in-a-year thing. Doesn't hurt making that 1 or 2 calls.

Many years later, well you know the rest.

And of course, you have friends who participate actively in community work. Hats off to them, commitment and passion on humanitarian work. Friends who visit poorer countries, build schools, teach and play with children, medical aid.
Somehow or coincidentally, many come back from these trips as couples attached. Sometimes I can't help but feel sceptical about the true intentions of these trips. OK I'm a bastard to think this way. I'm not talking all of them.

Of course, the chinese idiom goes that helping others is the greatest joy in life. I truly stand by that statement. There's another one, God help those who help themselves. Haha.

I feel that many of those people helping other people are the people who need serious help themselves. Always learn to love yourself and the closest people around you first before you really start to love and help strangers extensively.