transcended.net

One of my favorite things about our condo is that I finally, after ten years without one, have my very own personal washing machine.  

No more scrounging for quarters, no worrying about strangers touching your unmentionables, no more lugging around laundry detergent or hampers!

In other words: heaven.

It’s probably yet another indication of what a big loser I am, but I actually look forward to doing laundry on the weekends.  I find it to be oddly soothing, like there’s at least one tiny portion of my life that I can keep from piling up into a suffocating mess.

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Last year, Paul and I decided to start a tradition of making charitable donations rather than getting each other gifts.  It isn’t really much of a sacrifice since we really do have everything we need and we’re lucky enough to be in a position where we don’t have to go without the things we want for very long.  So we don’t really need to go out and buy each other stuff at Christmas when we both get stuff all the time anyway.  For example, the hubby surprised me with a new pair of super comfy walking shoes (my first pair of asics!) for my treadmill test last week.  With the economy the way it is, we know how incredibly blessed we have been…I remember when Paul called me that day in November two years ago to tell me he had been laid off.  My company was in the middle of a major “integration” after we had literally just bought the other investment bank and it was still very unclear whether or not I would have a job soon.  I seriously considered the humiliating possibility that we might have to move in with my parents. 

But somehow, everything just worked out.  Paul got unemployment for a few months and then found a job that paid him almost what he was making at his previous company.  I not only kept my seat, I got promoted quickly because of the integration (long story having to do with me suddenly being the most senior person in the group familiar with the legacy way of doing things) and despite the economy got pretty decent raises and (small) bonuses every year.  We were able to get a pretty good deal on a beautiful condo in one of the loveliest parts of this beautiful city, a place big enough to grow in…

Anyway, I don’t take any of this stuff for granted.   We don’t deserve it anymore than a lot of other people who are not in situations as fortunate as ours and yet we have been blessed with it.  I guess this was a very long, round-about way of me saying, it’s the least we can do to give a little bit back.  In fact, we should probably give a lot more than we do.  When I read the blogs of those missionaries in Haiti, I feel so guilty.  The guilt usually drives me to donate, which is fine, but still feels a bit hollow.  There are so many people out there doing important things with their lives – making a difference.  What am I doing with mine?  10-12 hours a day in front of four monitors, staring at a Bloomberg terminal and watching the numbers on the screen change.  Sometimes it can feel meaningful, when people are yelling or the market is moving or whatever…but…eh…it’s just money at the end of the day.  Not life or death.  Not changing someone’s life.  Not trying to make a difference, just another dollar.  At the same time, I like my job.  Not because it’s about money but because it’s challenging and requires a lot of thinking.  And numbers make sense.  As you can see, I’m feeling very conflicted about all of this, I think it has something to do with that quarter-life crisis thing…one of my old friends told me that that means it’s time to have kids.  I think he’s right but how does that help me?

Hm.

I seem to have gotten very sidetracked from what I was originally planning to talk about – which charities Paul and I chose this year.

First Response Backpacks for wounded vets put together by Soldier’s Angels and chicks for a family from World Vision. 

I was planning to just give to WWP as we have before but Paul didn’t like that they only use 61.6% of their donations on actual program expenses. Considering they have Bill O’Reilly promoting them for free all the time, I tend to agree that it doesn’t make sense so I guess we will probably take a break from doing our giving through them and seeing if maybe that number improves over time.  I still think they’re a great organization but maybe they need to improve themselves operationally so that they can maximize the impact of the money people are donating.  They seem to seend a lot of useless crap like certificates and other junk I really don’t want (which should have been a big red flag but I guess I just didn’t think about it).

We’ve given to Soldier’s Angels before and the founder is clearly doing this out of love and not financial gain (the organization brought in $10MM in 2009 and she paid herself $22,500). They use 78.1% of donations for program expenses which is still not as high as World Vision (88.3%) but seems pretty good for a relatively smaller organization and way better than WWP. 

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I started off writing about laundry right?  How I ended up rambling to this point I have no idea…

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Ugh.  Back to work tomorrow for the first day in over a week.  I feel strangely nervous, like it’s my first day back from summer vacation or something.  I don’t know why, it’s just another day and actually a lot of people will be out since it’s the week before Christmas. 

It’ll probably be good for me to leave this room and finally rejoin the world.  Maybe it’ll help me get out of my own head and pull out of this funk I’ve been in.