Philanthropy is the act of making the world a better place; here's how you come into it.
When one generally hears the term 'philanthropy', one's mind might automatically jump to the most charitable person in the world, somebody like Bill Gates who is renowned for giving away their incomprehensible fortunes to help humankind. However, this sort of definition is not what the word was originally planned to symbolize, and recapturing its initial context can go a long way towards aiding our sense of purpose and participation in the elevation of our fellow person. Philanthropy originates from an ancient Greek word, philánthrōpos, implying 'man-loving' in the broadest sense of the term. Although the more wealthy members of society were certainly expected to pay their share, philanthropy was a vital part of daily life for daily people, indicating that there was a genuine sense of purpose and collective obligation in neighborhoods that could also be incredibly powerful at our current moment in history.
Today, one does not need to be the most generous person in history to make a difference; a minimum of not in the sense that kindness is measured by the sum total of your charitable contributions. Today, we can all recognise the power of cumulative action, the requirement to demand change in order to affect it, and things like crowdfunding have actually shown that a little bit from a great deal of people can make. This spirit of co-operation is something that is taught to everyone when we are young, that we should assist others and be a good Samaritan, that the greater whole is more vital than the individual. Although perhaps they are the same thing. When all of us flourish, we thrive to a much greater degree. By recovering the title of philanthropist in our daily lives, everybody can feel unified by a common meaning and function, affording themselves the recognition that wanting to improve the scenarios of life on this planet is worthy of.
It can typically feel like the world these days has plenty of issues far too huge for ordinary daily folk like us to alter. Nonetheless, all of us wish to make the world a better place for all the people and animals that reside in it, however as most of us do not have access to the resources of some of the world's celebrity philanthropists like Frank F Islam or more humbly peaceful ones like Bruno Wang, it's easy to feel a little powerless. However, philanthropists that help the poor can be found in all sizes and shapes, and the easy reality that everybody feels that desire to assist fix the terrific problems of the world implies that we can make a real difference. Nevertheless little that difference might be, it's still important. To help us we can turn to a more ancient understanding of the word 'philanthropy', one that has as much a location in the modern world as it performed in the world of 2,000 years earlier.