Selfish Acts of Altruism

My favourite holiday is upon us! Yahooooo!! How ya doin', 2013?!

Notable Moments of 2012
1. I moved out of my shitty, Gypsy-infested basement apartment and into a house that I actually like.
2. I gave birth on my bedroom floor and subsequently took my very first ambulance ride. Both experiences were pretty cool*.
3. I paid off my student loan and one of my credit cards.

*Birth story coming soon. Probably.

I spent the better part of November and all of December thinking about the nature of my unhappiness and how big of an asshole I am for being unhappy in the first place. I am a healthy, privileged white chick with two beautiful, happy children, a great partner, and family and friends who love us. I have a nice, warm place to live, plenty of food to eat, and enough money to make ends meet. Chase and I both  have stable jobs, with benefits, that we enjoy. I have access to free healthcare, a year of maternity leave, and the means to be or do anything I want just because I was fortunate enough to be born in Canada. My life is awesome.

My problem isn't that I have legitimate things to be depressed about; it's that I am not doing anything. I spend too much time thinking about myself and devising indulgent self-betterment projects (the same ones, over and over again) that contribute absolutely nothing to my character or the world at large.

In late November, I decided that I was going to donate 1% of my income to charity every month. I realize 1% isn't a lot, but at the moment, it's what I can afford and it's more than I had been donating previously (which is next to 0%). What I really want to do is sponsor a kid through Plan Canada, but for various reasons, that's going to have to wait until my maternity leave is over. For now, I'll just be donating to random charities until my financial future is a little more predictable.

So that's kind of my New Years Resolution - to continue donating 1% of my income, and to focus less on myself and more on others (family, friends and strangers alike). I'm still kind of an asshole for trying to be more altruistic to make MYSELF feel better, but at least I didn't vow to take a picture of myself every day in 2013?