Referring to the article ‘The Gift, Annals of Philanthropy’
(Originally published in The New Yorker. Compilation copyright © 2004 The Conde Nast Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Zell Kravinsky is the hundred and thirty fourth American to donate his kidney to someone he did not know. He donated almost all of his real-state property worth 45 million dollars only to follow it with his ‘non-directed’ kidney donation.
Coming from a family with poor economical background, Zell’s frugal lifestyle was nothing unprecedented. He lived on basic necessity throughout his life even after he had achieved considerable progress in his life.
Introduced early in his life to stocks and then to real-estate he has a head start and soon finds himself making money, lots of it. Combined with his math skills, he makes even more and plays in millions owing bonds, apartments, condominiums as well as grocery stores.
He keeps this up until he is very well off and then, as if blown by the wind, decides to give it all away. The best part is he decides to give all he can, not only how much he could afford but give every penny he could give, including his right kidney! This is what I call
true charity and thus an unmarked act of kindness.
He went on to have such strong beliefs of kindness that he even thought of giving away his left kidney and live on dialysis. This may be the highest degree of altruism and kindness; however, because he did not do it, I think it is more of a bluff. But, given that he did donate one of his kidney to someone he never met before, his act of kindness should not be gone unheard.
So the question is why did he do it??
In the story his friends say that the cause was depression but that does not seem so. How many of the depressed people go about helping out people and showing acts of kindness? If the cause was depression, he would have been into drugs and stuff.
I think when he earned enough; until money was no longer an issue, he realized how difficult life was for him before he had money and the more he thought about it, the more he found out about people who resembled him in his early years. So in an attempt to help them out and psychologically help himself out, he started to help. But, the more he showed kindness the more he was drawn to it. He came to a point at which he could ultimately not stop at all.
(Originally published in The New Yorker. Compilation copyright © 2004 The Conde Nast Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
Zell Kravinsky is the hundred and thirty fourth American to donate his kidney to someone he did not know. He donated almost all of his real-state property worth 45 million dollars only to follow it with his ‘non-directed’ kidney donation.
Coming from a family with poor economical background, Zell’s frugal lifestyle was nothing unprecedented. He lived on basic necessity throughout his life even after he had achieved considerable progress in his life.
Introduced early in his life to stocks and then to real-estate he has a head start and soon finds himself making money, lots of it. Combined with his math skills, he makes even more and plays in millions owing bonds, apartments, condominiums as well as grocery stores.
He keeps this up until he is very well off and then, as if blown by the wind, decides to give it all away. The best part is he decides to give all he can, not only how much he could afford but give every penny he could give, including his right kidney! This is what I call
true charity and thus an unmarked act of kindness.He went on to have such strong beliefs of kindness that he even thought of giving away his left kidney and live on dialysis. This may be the highest degree of altruism and kindness; however, because he did not do it, I think it is more of a bluff. But, given that he did donate one of his kidney to someone he never met before, his act of kindness should not be gone unheard.
So the question is why did he do it??
In the story his friends say that the cause was depression but that does not seem so. How many of the depressed people go about helping out people and showing acts of kindness? If the cause was depression, he would have been into drugs and stuff.
I think when he earned enough; until money was no longer an issue, he realized how difficult life was for him before he had money and the more he thought about it, the more he found out about people who resembled him in his early years. So in an attempt to help them out and psychologically help himself out, he started to help. But, the more he showed kindness the more he was drawn to it. He came to a point at which he could ultimately not stop at all.
1 comments:
Very deep but interesting.
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