The Poverty Snowball Follow Up: Yaks For Everyone, And My One Big Thing

Written by Dave Navarro on October 27, 2008

It’s been about two weeks since Blog Action Day and The Poverty Snowball post, and I want to thank everyone who took me up on the discount offer of the Never Procrastinate Again program, where $10 of the purchase price went to the Heifer Foundation, a kick-ass organization that helps break the poverty cycle around the world.

You guys and gals helped raise $150 over 3 days for Heifer, and I just wanted to let you know about the Cuomei Tibetan Community Development Project that was funded as a result.

This project will help impoverished Tibetan households in the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR) to improve economic self-sufficiency and preserve their culture through Heifer’s values-based community development activities. Seventy yellow cattle, 210 female yaks and related training and services will be provided to 140 impoverished Tibetan families to improve their living standard. A Tibetan Veterinary Technologic Book will be published for indigenous cultural preservation. A solar power system will be provided to the 140 families to support environmental protection. Capacity building for targeted communities and passing on the gift will lead to long-term sustainable development.

What You Do Today Echoes For Eternity

$150 won’t change the world overnight, but it will put a dent in part of the problem for a few people … and all the people who come after them … and all the people who come after them.  Anything you do to get the Poverty Snowball rolling today will have larger and larger long-term effects for real people as time goes by, and that’s as good a reason you can get for not putting off helping people today.  That’s why I’ve decided that moving forward, a percentage of all product sales from this blog will be going straight to Heifer every month.

I recommend you do the same in some fashion or another.  Pick a way to make a difference to someone who’s living a life on the opposite end of the financial spectrum as you are, and do it on a monthly basis.  It changes the way you look at your own life, your own choices, your own everything.  It takes your eyes off of your own day-to-day issues and gets you looking at the big picture - the really, really big picture - and how you can be a big part of how that picture ultimately turns out.

My One Big Thing, And The Coming Direction Of This Blog

This month a big truth hit me - there are things in my life I’ve been settling for - attitudes, circumstances and bogus “limitations” I’ve been imagining have Great and Unchangeable Power over my life.  I’ve been so caught up in The American Dream and all of those Otherwise Capitaliz-able Profound Things that I’ve missed the point - that life (in my beliefs) isn’t about having things or doing cool things as much as it is about making those “echoes in eternity” - in other words, in making a lasting difference in the lives of people you love as well as people who will never, ever know you.

One thing I’ve been striving to do with Rock Your Day is to not make it another one of those overrated, mindless productivity blogs that saturate too many people’s feed readers.  I’ve unsubscribed from them all, and I’m sure a lot of my readers will, too.  Because we’re not looking to live a life where we do more.

We’re looking to live lives that matter more.

We’re looking to live a life on our own terms, not one where we just take what’s put in front of us.

We’re looking to never again feel like we’ve sacrificed time with the people we love for stuff, or glory, or some future where we’ll finally be able to live “the good life.”

Screw the future “good life.”  We’re ready for that stuff now. And we don’t need to be rich to do it.

Get Ready To Learn How To Rock The Hell Out Of Your Days

This blog is going to get a lot more aggressive, starting now.  I’m going to be asking tougher questions that make you take harder looks at your life.  I’m going to be poking and prodding you to see where you’re settling for things, where you’re selling yourself short, and where you’re setting yourself up for regret (but you’re just avoiding acknowledging it).

This blog is going to get tougher, grittier, and totally unapologetic about dealing with the important stuff head on.

Because your life is going to end some day - poof! - and you’re going to be left with one of two things:

Many, many regrets … or many, many snowballs.

The choice is yours.  I know what mine is.  I’m 32.  That’s one-quarter of my life already accounted for (hey, I think optimistically when it comes to advances in health technology).  I’ve had good times and bad times in those three decades, but some of it has been hit-or-miss.  I haven’t taken full advantage of my potential, and I haven’t honored the people I care about with the full measure of their worth.  I’ve missed out on some things that I wish I hadn’t.

Never again.  Screw that.

Perhaps you can relate.

If so, then subscribe to this blog and to the newsletter (in November I’m going to make a radical change to my mailing list that I think you’ll really appreciate).

The time for settling is over.  The time for taking total control of your life - and the echoes you make in eternity - is here.  The time for living a life that matters more is at hand.

Thanks for all your support so far.  I look forward to returning the favor.

Make it matter -

Dave