Somewhere I saw a comment from a young person, wishing they could Do More to help other people with all these natural disasters slamming the country right now, and I thought of you, and the post you wrote right after Katrina.

The thing is — when you are young, it does hurt to see other people hurting, and you do feel so powerless, and wish you could help everybody at once.  And when you realize you can’t, it’s easy to get depressed, or worse, to say, “Well, since I can’t do anything about everybody, I won’t do anything at all.”

Thing is, it’s physically impossible to help *everybody.*  (Aside from which, as I once read, if *you* are helping everybody, you are depriving other people of their chance to be helpful, too.)  So you learn to pace yourself:  I can’t help all the disaster victims, but I can donate money or food or clothing to the place where it will do the most good.  For me, that’s always IOCC, because I know that every dollar I give will be matched by nine other sources, *and* they use nearly everything they collect for the good of others.  I can’t stop wars, and I can’t stop people getting hurt in them, but I can give money to the Disabled American Veterans, and thank a veteran for fighting on my behalf.  They seem like such little things.  But it all adds up.

Take heart, Chris.  People *do* lose people all the time — and it is always a tragedy.  But it only remains a tragedy if we let it get to us, if we don’t use what we learned to reach out a compassionate heart and hand.