My Resolution for 2009

As many of you know, I made a challenge to myself a couple of years ago that has changed my life. I had been traveling through Bolivia, when what seemed like the simplest question made a huge impact on me. A man asked me: “Do you have a car?” I didn’t have to think about my reply: “Of course I have a car. You have to have a car to get around in the United States.”

He looked at me, wide-eyed, and I understood from his look how much I was taking for granted. That response, which I’d uttered so nonchalantly, became something I focused on increasingly in the coming months. I wondered how I would get to work, how I would buy groceries, without a car. One day I decided to ride my bike the 10 and a half miles home from work, mostly to see if I could do it. I did, and more, I enjoyed it. I started riding both ways, and to the grocery store as well. I decided to see how long I could go without driving, and I still haven’t found the answer.

That simple act of learning to live without something I’d taken for a necessity has given me so much; I am healthier and happier and I see so much more of the lovely detail in the world around me. I’d often lamented that I travel to such interesting places and live in a place that lacks such memorable detail, but the truth was that I was always just rushing through it.

We face, as a world and as a culture, so many major problems at the moment. Our world is increasingly polluted, our health diminished and our financial systems in turmoil. We consume huge quantities of the world’s precious resources: oil, food, and power. And even with relatively tremendous wealth, much of America is in debt; we mistake our wants for needs. The problems that we face seem perhaps overwhelming, but their solution is not in more government policy, nor in any outside fix. We have, and have always had, the power to change the world around us in dramatic ways. We can each take simple action that will cumulatively result in a better world for all of us.

I challenge all of you, my friends, my family, acquaintances and strangers alike, to think about what you really need. Can you walk to the store rather than drive? Take the bus to work? Put up a clothesline? Plant a garden? If, like so many Americans, you are facing financial difficulty, the money you save will help you afford life’s real necessities. And if, like me, you are blessed to have a good job and more than you need, you can use that savings for some good.

This year, my New Year’s resolution is specific. As I write this, I am sitting in a café in Chiapas, México. The café is filled with people like me, people with laptops, sipping coffee, and also with children, circulating among us, selling gum and cigarettes, little ceramic turtles and woven bracelets. I find it heartbreaking, and yet, I think that buying from them out of sympathy only encourages their parents to put them to work. They tug at the heartstrings and that, unfortunately, is the point. I think of my own childhood, by comparison, with a mother that taught me to read before I set foot in school, with a father that taught me that I am absolutely as capable, and deserving of respect, as any man.

This year I am going to donate the money I save by not driving to Room to Read, an outstanding organization that funds the education of children in the developing world by building libraries, schools and by funding scholarships for girls, with remarkably little overhead.

AAA calculates the average cost of driving a mid-sized sedan 15,000 miles at an astounding $9,369 (excluding car payments). That’s the cost of one person to drive; or the total cost for educating 37 women for a full year if donated, instead, to Room to Read.

I ask you all to consider doing the same; not necessarily to give up driving altogether, but to eliminate some of the waste in your own life, to carpool once a week, or take a bus, put up a clothesline, and use the money you save to pay down your debts or, if you can, to help others. Room to Read is the organization I have chosen to contribute to because I believe that education solves so many other problems and because I know that they use the money donated to them wisely, with respect for the local cultures where they work. It is my way of supporting the little girl that is trying desperately to sell me a pack of cigarettes, my way of repaying the kindness of a man who, poor though he was, would not let me pay him for a banana.

If you would like to join me in my effort, you can make a donation to Room to Read at http://www.roomtoread.org/donate?source=PS-AnneDirkse. This URL will let me track donations and I will make regular updates to my blog to let you all know how much money we’ve been able to raise. You can also go directly to the Room to Read website and include the comment PS-AnneDirkse with your donation.

I am going to donate my car to another responsible organization that is very important to me, the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. My sister has had Type 1 Diabetes since she was 11 and it is a disease that desperately needs a cure. The JDRF is an outstanding organization and I believe that they hold the key to preventing and curing Type 1 Diabetes.

I am so thankful for another year of good fortune, for my wonderful friends and family that love and support me. I am thankful for my job, for my health and for the opportunities I’ve had throughout my life. I am especially thankful for the opportunity to travel, to see other cultures and, in them, to have a mirror to reflect on all that I am so lucky to have.