I think, deep down, almost everybody wants to help people in some way. The major question is how are you going to do it. After all, most God-fearing Americans also don’t want to inconvenience themselves too much or possibly even face the same injustice as the people they’re trying to help.

Lately it seems I’ve seen a number of people who have found the same way to handle this dilemma: by becoming a well-informed member of society.

A well-informed member of society listens to NPR, watches the McNeil Lehrer News Hour and reads The New York Times.

Their role is simple. They are able to explain to you any and all crises on the world stage, but not able to do a damn thing about any of them.

Of course, in their opinion they are making a huge difference. They are empowering themselves to vote for people who will pass legislation that someone else will carry out that will make a difference in the lives of someone in need.

Essentially, they’re helping some third person. I’m not involved, you’re not involved — it’s THEY who are involved.

My primary beef with well-informed members of society is that while they’re concentrating on the social ramifications of the price of beef in Sweden, they’re ignoring so many problems in their own community. Problems that they might actually be able to do something about.

An excellent example of an issue that people spend way too much energy on is the global economic crisis. I’ll provide a quick synopsis for clarity.

You see, we’ve got these rich countries, called the G-7 countries. They’re kind of like you and your buddies. So any time your buddies need a little extra cash, it’s no problem to loan it to them because you know they’ll pay you back eventually.

Let’s say there’s this one guy — we’ll call him Trevor — who’s got a lot of money and is usually pretty generous about it. Now we’ll say there’s this other guy — we’ll call him Russia — who always seems to need some cash because he got fired or something. The global economic crisis (I think) is essentially the question “Should Trevor lend Russia more money?”

Now I’ve provided this completely ignorant, if not insulting summary of the global economic crisis for a reason. I really don’t know much else about it, and I really don’t give a damn.

I try not to worry about things I can’t do anything about. I accept that I can’t do anything about the global economic crisis, poverty in the Sudan or Japanese kiddy porn.

On the other hand, I can volunteer at a homeless shelter, a nursing home or even a church and put myself in a position to do someone some good.

I recently got into an argument with someone over this. His position was that helping one person was insignificant when so many people are in need. What a horrible thing to believe.

When you’re helping someone, the issue isn’t the quantity of people you’ve helped. What matters is what you’ve given up in order to help them. Truly doing service involves giving up a valuable resource, like time, without worrying about what you get back in return.

In my opinion, giving even an hour of your time is a tremendous contribution. On the other hand, spending 12 minutes pulling a lever to vote for “change” is a cop out. Maybe by voting you’re helping the process along, but that’s all you’re doing.

I guess my point is similar to a story I’m sure most of you have heard. There was a man walking on a beach who noticed that thousands of sea monkeys had washed ashore and were dying.

The man began to throw the sea monkeys back into the sea by the handful. Another man came along and saw that there was no way that he was going to be able to save even a small fraction of the sea monkeys. He said, “You’re not going to make a difference.” The other man paused, with a hand full of sea monkeys, and replied, “It makes a difference to these here sea monkeys.”

If you’re going to be a well-informed member of society, more power to you. But realize that part of being well informed is knowing where you’re help is needed and where it’s just a waste of time.

I think Paul Simon put it best when he said “I get the news I need from the weather report.” You know what’s important; you don’t need CNN or Rupert Murdoch to tell you what it is.

So do me a favor the next time you’re debating some issue involving “Global ramifications” with other members of your demographic. Put down your herbal tea and ask yourself if you’re really in a position to make a difference. Probably not.

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Ben Godar is a junior in sociology from Ames.