“What is your ultimate wish for your child? I want him to be happy.” It’s not these a common phrase that we hear so many parents and other people saying? That’s true but all the society moves in a different direction.
The world is full of false examples of happiness that everyone watches and wishes every day. From TV, magazines and social media, everyone tries to expose a much better and brighter life than they really have, using a different sort of techniques that ultimately leads to money. From houses to cars, apparel, gadgets, travels or even freedom, all that is associated with money and even if your parents say that they only want your happiness, the society is saying to you that for you to be happy you need money.
My friends and my family use to say that I’m always looking at ways to make money everywhere. It’s not something that I want but something that society taught me from my childhood, and of course, to me and to a large portion of the people around the world. That’s why when you give someone free time, in the end, they come up with a new idea to generate money.
Money is the solution?
In Africa, we can experience a different scenario. The society is in a more virgin state, without so much of the things we think that we cannot live without. They live with very poor conditions of life, strive to get some decent food and dream about healthcare. Besides that, children are always smiling, playing and enjoying school, with a real state of happiness. Adult people, they don’t share the same mood. When people get older they start to get more information about the world and how it is the society in other places. They start to get access to social media and see what people have and do in richer countries, and all that plays a big contribution to their lack of happiness compared to the youngsters that didn’t know yet.
Money is the solution? African kids show us that not necessarily. But when we start to feel the lack of something, a powerful force appears in wanting to acquire money. And once we get money, we never give any of it away. The sensations that everyone fell when earning money, especially the not recurrent one, are similar to the ones you experience when someone notices you, similar to the dopamine effect (object of another blog article). For the majority of people, the bad sensations of losing overcame the good sensations of winning and that’s why people tend to be more focused on avoiding losses than in win more. But there is a way where we can experience good sensations, and it’s not winning or losing but giving.
Some people are always available to give, despite their poor capacity, and others, even with more abundance, never want to give. There are some steps or milestones that people have and only after overcoming those steps, they say that they can give, but the problem is that after one milestone there is another and another. Money is very volatile, some moments we have, others we don’t have and our life course continues to be the same. Even me, I’m still not very prone towards giving but I had an experience of giving to a project that was successful and the joy, pride and awareness sense were very nice. Something that I think everyone needs to experience. If we continue to score success in terms of economic profit there will still be parts of the society where economy barely touch and will be left behind. That’s where nonprofit organizations enter and can fulfill an empty space left behind by companies.
People tend to give more when they see others also giving
Nonprofit organizations have a lot of problems to grow and be successful in their mission. Good managers and great talent prefer to work in the profit sector, with a good salary and give a part of the salary to the nonprofit sector. Of course, that is the best economic option to them but it’s not the best way to help the nonprofit sector. Nonprofit organizations need to be seen as equal to the profit companies. They need to raise money, they need to have a point of difference, they need to hire the best ones to work with them, they need to multiply their resources and they need to give. If they are managed like the profit sector, perhaps they can multiply their resources and charity money can increase worldwide instead of being flat like it has been in the last years. But for that, society needs to think that it’s normal for nonprofit organizations to invest in themselves and not only on others because receive 2 and give 2 is worse than receive 2, multiply the 2 received and give 4.
Giving is not a hard thing to do. After you do it you can feel good sensations and be thankful for what you have. People tend to give more when they see others also giving, so let’s give and create a give and receive movement that can motivate others to give. Use the right channels to maximize your impact and believe me, there will be more happiness besides your child happiness!