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ReasonEnduring
I got exactly what you mean. I have a question for you but first I will help others trying to explain what you meant in other words.
Money is relative. For poor people, some developed countries doesnt actually manage to see them much, $10, 10 dollars or euro or british money, can be a lot. It can buy their food and water for a few days. Some people actually live with $10 daily in their lifes.
$10 is nothing for billionaries. Just doing the math, what is $10 for the poor doesnt equal even one cent for billionaries.
Thats the point. For some people, donating 10 can be quite a significant amount, while for others, even $10000 is not a lot at all. So, some billionaries arent exactly a good heart but they can pose to be. Some of them got, like 100 million on their accounts, but just a 2 million donation is enough to make them "philanthropist".
The percentage of income is the reasonable way to correct this relativeness. Actually, it doesnt fully correct it, but I wont enter much in detail why and I will suppose it does. 10% of income is 10% of income regardless of the person being rich or poor.
And now its time for the question...
When you mentioned this, "Its easy to be an Angel in Heaven.", I didnt need any more explanation.
I have to tell you a "story", I have been grown up in a place with significant corruption. There were stuff in my ending childhood and teen years which I only realize were corruption just later... because they were incredibly normal, just the status quo. I prefer not to specify what things are.
I had grown up and in my "adulthood" I started to slowly correcting myself and removing some of bad actions and habits, that is not something actually easy, because sometimes I dont really know if something is really wrong or its me being paranoid. In my teen moments, I even reached a time where I needed to tolerate corruption because I would run out of friends if I didnt. Actually, to be more specific, I had to tolerate and live with people who constantly cheated on school tests. Myself, I had never benefited of cheating on test but I, on two occasions, I supported it. But I had reach a point where I just didnt wanted to support anymore. Some people even saw myself as selfish for refusing to support. But still, I needed to treat people who cheated more equally, like cheating or not is a matter of..opinion. And that was on the test. Cheating in homework (copying, paste and switch a few words from somebody elses homework), on hard or long ones (not the regular ones), was so usually that I found myself doing it very naturally, until some point in university I realized that it was wrong as well.. I got that at my ending teenhood and start of adulthood to that. And about cheating test, there were some occasions were teachers were absolutely aware of it, and it was completely natural to them to pretend nothing happened. One day I even pointed out to teacher, not loud of course, and he just said some other random thing and said I should continue to do my test. But slowly, without realizing, I was getting more and more lonely, and although that wasnt the reason being alone wasnt rooted into that.
However, I had reached a point where I had to stop progressing towards that, and I havent actually finished the whole task of fixing bad habits that were just..normal. Actually, some people think I am too honest and that I should even lie more often and manipulate more often.. I didnt meant metaphorically but rather literally (but then falled back a bit saying, "no, its just real life stuff not manipulating") I am compared to a child. Things like being too honest or even "doing the right thing", are all just child stuff from the movies, and Im being childish for wanting to follow them. Real adult life is different and lying, manipulating, pretending, on a regular basis, is part of maturity. This is not my affirmation, but what I have been told to, more than one time, more than one person, and they didnt meant bad for me. Thats why I stopped progressing on that area, I still told while lies weekly (but I am still more honest than 95% or more of people around me...or perhaps 99%) or some very few times lead people thinking something that isnt true, but even with that, its still too much honesty.
Im still evaluating. I have been tend to attack this with loneliness, and I started to appreciate it. I have been putting silence where I would need to lie. Have been question avoidant with questions I should answer with a lie,and, when pushed, I give an empty answer, and when I cant even do that, then I finally do the lie. Still, the fact that I dont do these things isolate me, and some people even "go after me", complain about my introversion, my excessive honesty and all stuff..
The more recent stuff about that is religion. I have a very honest answer on that... Is there a God? I dont know. Is there an afterlife? I dont know, I think its likely, but I cant be sure. Well, I have been constantly pressed to subscribe that view, I have been called closed-minded for my answer, people push me religious books and it happens that it is usual to isolate people that arent religious, to (on your back) bully you partially because of that, and there are institutions that makes some enviroment distortions towards that, create opportunity here and there, isolate other people in there, etc...
And one close relative, that is like me but less (if I am more honest than 95-99, that relative is something like 80-90), have told me that I should pretend I believe in God so people will colaborate with me and I can get more social and get some life advantages that some people has. That was the relative being honest. Many people tell me how much it is better for the life of a person to be religious, how flows and its easier; But only that relative truly opened about why.
So, I have been into this... What should do you think I should do? Strategies, tips? I want to keep my ground but the more time passes, harder gets to keep it.
Ascending to heaven is difficult but it is one option, but it would take me years, and it is not a sure thing for many reasons. And perhaps I should do a thread for advice on that..