WARNING: This entry is not intended to be funny.

CHARITY

Employees at my company are encouraged to give to charity. I give to charity because I have been very lucky in my life and know that many have been unlucky.

I found it difficult, though, as I pondered which charity I might want to support. See, I constantly strive for efficiency. Time, resources, and manpower are scarce, and so many things need to get done. If you decide to give money to a bad charity, such as perhaps one that ultimately supports dictatorships or terrorists or something, you are hurting rather than helping by giving your money away.

Also, even if you're helping you might not be helping as much as possible. Let's say one disease kills a million people per year, and another kills 100,000. It would make sense to cure the million-killer before solving the 100,000-killer, assuming that the million-killer wasn't going to take 10 times the investment to cure.

And then there are children. Ah, what potential! Consider that there are over a billion people in China, and over a billion more in India. I believe strongly there are about as many brilliant people in China, India, or Africa as in the United States. How many of the ones in Asia or Africa have had as much of a chance as someone in the US? Could we help our future most by helping out a few children in those countries realize their full potential? Perhaps the cure for cancer might come from someone in China who is only 5 years old today, who might earn less than a dollar a day in labor, but is able to study because someone paid $365 a year for them to concentrate on school.

I ultimately decided where to put my charity money for now, but I know charity will be a lifelong challenge.