Charity Begins at Home

Charity refers to something done out of kindness. Conventional wisdom has always demanded that every person’s duty begins by helping people around him before moving to help the larger world. Logically, it would be unimaginable for the members of your family to keep suffering yet claim to assist others from a distance. This is a saying and an assertion which has been held for years and has always proven right, not just in kindness but in all spheres of life. Take for instance many government appointments. Save for instances where the law are specific on not tolerating such appointments, many top leaders have appointed their cronies and relatives to top government positions. This is however not how charity should work. It should be within reason.

While any act of kindness is a welcome and a step in the right direction, it is important that it starts with your own environment, and more particularly with your family members. What would your kindness do if the people within the environment you live are starving? It must start with those around you. Logically, one who ignores his immediate family members and claims to offer charity to others will most likely be subject to ridicule and hatred. Even those, he helps, will see him as stupid. In real life scenario, the first charge to your resource should be your immediate family and neighbors, but why? One may ask.

Family and the places we live in largely contribute to our emotional and psychological growth. Family members support you in a million ways and largely contribute to your successes and failures. When members of family remain in deprivation, you lose the needed support they offer. They should be prioritized if you are to get the much needed strength and will power to continuing being charitable to others.

Looking at social reform, it should also start with your family. Take a short look at political leaders; many times when the problems of their families have haunted their political stand. It simply means that what your family does has an impact on your life as a person. Social reform should therefore start with one’s own family as ultimately it will impact on the person himself. Failure to do so, leads to dead weight in one’s career and life in general. Take for instance, what weight will it have if a parent to an alcoholic asks others to quit drinking? They will probably ask him to advice his son first. People appreciate when individuals present their own examples to show for what they speak.

In general, although philanthropists assist educational institutions, medical institutions and orphanages, among others, they do not do so at the expense of their families. If you are a doctor, you must face your own problems if you are to successfully help patients.

The bottom-line is, all acts must start with one’s own environment. Everyone should first clean their houses before making a quest to clean other people’s houses.

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