{"id":421372,"date":"2025-12-03T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T08:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/421372\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T08:00:45","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T08:00:45","slug":"how-to-break-free-of-money-dysmorphia-and-3-other-tips-on-generosity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/421372\/","title":{"rendered":"How to break free of \u201cmoney dysmorphia\u201d \u2014 and 3 other tips on generosity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As the writer of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/your-mileage-may-vary-advice-column\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:an ethical advice column;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">an ethical advice column<\/a>, I get a lot of questions from people who really want to do good in the world but are running into problems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">They want to know how to give charity \u2014\u00a0and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/372519\/charity-giving-effective-altruism-mutual-aid-homeless\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:how to do it optimally;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">how to do it optimally<\/a>. They want to know if they should be <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/410573\/family-friends-charity-donations-communication-defensiveness\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:pressuring their parents;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">pressuring their parents<\/a> to donate more. They want to know if there\u2019s such a thing as helping <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-highlight\/466054\/boundaries-psychology-self-care-burnout\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:too much;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">too much<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/385158\/charity-solidarity-donating-mutual-aid-money-dysmorphia\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:too little;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">too little<\/a>. And they want to know about ways of doing good that aren\u2019t about giving money at all.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">So, in honor of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/21727010\/giving-tuesday-explained-charity-nonprofits\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Giving Tuesday;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Giving Tuesday<\/a>, I\u2019ve combed through all the advice I\u2019ve given over the past year and created this cheat sheet for you. It\u2019s packed with my top tips, as well as my favorite quotes about the philosophy of doing good.<\/p>\n<p>If giving away money is hard, start small. Then, prepare to feel amazing.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">I grew up in a family on welfare. We always had housing and enough to eat, but we couldn\u2019t afford frills. I put every penny I got straight into a savings account, and my child-brain whined with anxiety when I saw my dad occasionally donate to others (what if we need that money?).<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">As an adult, I was lucky to get jobs that paid decently. But ,I kept grappling with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/06\/28\/business\/what-is-money-dysmorphia.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:money dysmorphia;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">money dysmorphia<\/a> \u2014 feeling nervous about money even after becoming financially stable.<\/p>\n<p>Tips for doing good<\/p>\n<ul class=\"mb-4\">\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sometimes, the best way to get comfortable with giving away money is to just start giving. Don\u2019t be shy about starting small; you can do a shocking amount of good for less than $100.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Make use of charity evaluators that tell you which nonprofits do the most good per dollar in a given field. But give up the fantasy that some magic formula can tell you how to optimize \u201cthe good\u201d overall.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">If you want to encourage others to donate more, meet them with empathy (not pressure or judginess) and emphasize the joy you get out of giving (not the moral case for it).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">So, believe me when I say, I understand that giving away your money can be scary.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Here\u2019s what I did: I started small. I gave $10 here, $50 there, until, eventually, I was donating thousands of dollars each year. It helped that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.givewell.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:rigorous;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">rigorous<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.happierlivesinstitute.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:charity;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">charity<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.founderspledge.com\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:evaluators;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">evaluators<\/a> had come on the scene, so I could feel confident that certain nonprofits would put my money to good use. And it helped to learn that even a modest donation can do serious good. For just $94, say, you can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/468551\/child-hunger-malnutrition-taimaka-future-perfect-25\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:keep a child from starving;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">keep a child from starving<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">To my surprise, my initial fear ended up giving way to a wild, leaping joy. Giving felt so good, not only because I knew it was helping others, but because it reminded my brain that I\u2019m not a solitary, atomized being;\u00a0I\u2019m connected to everyone else. As weird as it may sound, Giving Tuesday actually became one of my favorite days of the year.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The British philosopher Derek Parfit once beautifully described <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/science-and-health\/2017\/1\/3\/14148208\/derek-parfit-rip-obit\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:his own experience undergoing this shift;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">his own experience undergoing this shift<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"mb-4 border-l-2 pl-5 italic text-tertiary\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">I seemed imprisoned in myself. My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness. When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air. There is still a difference between my life and the lives of other people. But the difference is less. Other people are closer. I am less concerned about the rest of my own life, and more concerned about the lives of others.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Understand what you can optimize \u2014\u00a0and what you can\u2019t.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">I\u2019m very grateful that we have charity evaluators whose entire job it is to find the nonprofits that genuinely do a lot of good with each dollar. Some nonprofits are much more effective than others trying to achieve the same goal, and all things being equal, we don\u2019t want to blow all our money on the wildly ineffective ones.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">So, optimization definitely has its place in the world of charity, and I recommend giving generously to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/406148\/best-charities-mental-health-happiness-well-being\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:\u201cbest buys\u201d for improving people\u2019s well-being;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">\u201cbest buys\u201d for improving people\u2019s well-being<\/a>. But, I would caution you not to stretch optimization beyond its optimal limits.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">If you want to optimize something, you have to be able to run an apples-to-apples comparison \u2014 to calculate how much good different things do in a single currency, so you can pick the best option. But helping people isn\u2019t reducible to one currency; it comes down to lots of incommensurable goods. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-highlight\/23862090\/subjective-wellbeing-wealth-philanthropy-gdp-happiness-givewell\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:How do you compare;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">How do you compare<\/a>, say, preventing malaria with alleviating depression? Saving lives versus improving them? Or saving the life of a kid versus saving the life of an adult?<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">There is no objective One True Answer here. How to rank these different goods depends on each person\u2019s subjective philosophical assumptions. So, we need to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-highlight\/387570\/moral-optimization\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:give up the fantasy that there\u2019s some magic formula that can tell us how to optimize \u201cthe good\u201d overall;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">give up the fantasy that there\u2019s some magic formula that can tell us how to optimize \u201cthe good\u201d overall<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">That doesn\u2019t mean anything goes, or that every charity is equally worthy of your money! It means the best you can do might be to consider how compelling you find the case for each one and <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/SigalSamuel\/status\/1838656174100734081\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:divvy up;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">divvy up<\/a> your budget accordingly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">For example, I give about 85 percent of my charity each year to highly cost-effective organizations abroad like <a href=\"https:\/\/www.givedirectly.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:GiveDirectly;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">GiveDirectly<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/strongminds.org\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:StrongMinds;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">StrongMinds<\/a>, because I know my money goes further in developing countries and I believe all lives are equally important. But, I also reserve a smaller amount for other things I value: a national homelessness organization, a social justice group, a media outlet, my meditation community, a group trying to preserve an endangered language.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Notice that some of these don\u2019t submit easily to quantification, and some aren\u2019t about furthering strictly \u201cmoral\u201d goods. I think they\u2019re important anyway.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">One of my touchstones is contemporary philosopher Susan Wolf\u2019s concept of the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/r.jordan.im\/download\/philosophy\/wolf1982.pdf\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:moral saint;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">moral saint<\/a>\u201d \u2014 someone who tries to make all their actions as morally good as possible.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Wolf argues that this is actually a bad ideal. We often think of \u201cvirtue\u201d as being connected to morality, but Wolf\u2019s point is that there are also non-moral virtues, like artistic beauty. If you ignore those, you end up bereft of the things that make up a life well lived:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"mb-4 border-l-2 pl-5 italic text-tertiary\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">If the moral saint is devoting all his time to feeding the hungry or healing the sick or raising money for Oxfam, then necessarily he is not reading Victorian novels, playing the oboe, or improving his backhand. A life in which none of these possible aspects of character are developed may seem to be a life strangely barren.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">I think that holds true both for how you spend your time and how you spend your money.<\/p>\n<p>Stop seeing yourself as a \u201cgiver.\u201d Start seeing yourself as part of a web.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">I encounter a lot of people who give so much of their time and money that they become overextended and resentful. Pop psychology would say these people need to get better at asserting \u201cpersonal boundaries\u201d \u2014\u00a0at drawing a sharp line between themselves and others. But, if you believe, as I do, that we\u2019re all actually profoundly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/407193\/combining-finances-marriage-partner-expenses-bad-feminist\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:interconnected and interdependent;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">interconnected and interdependent<\/a>, then that idea of boundaries may feel like an unconvincing reason to practice self-preservation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Instead, I think it\u2019s better to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/the-highlight\/466054\/boundaries-psychology-self-care-burnout\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:picture yourself as part of Indra\u2019s net;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">picture yourself as part of Indra\u2019s net<\/a>. According to that classic Buddhist metaphor, an infinite net stretches out across the universe (a bit like a spiderweb). At each node where the threads intersect, there\u2019s a jewel (a bit like a dewdrop that sits on the spiderweb). Allan Watts, an American popularizer of Eastern philosophy, described it beautifully:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"mb-4 border-l-2 pl-5 italic text-tertiary\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Imagine a multidimensional spider\u2019s web in the early morning covered with dew drops. And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops. And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection. And so ad infinitum. That is the Buddhist conception of the universe in an image.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Because each dew drop (or jewel) contains the image of every other dew drop (or jewel) in the entire net, none of them exists as a separate, boundaried entity. Change one, and all the others change, too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">So, if you mess up your own well-being, you\u2019re diminishing one of these intrinsically precious bright spots. You\u2019re also diminishing every other bright spot in the net. That is not morally praiseworthy.<\/p>\n<p>Remember that others have different ways of doing good. They may be just as valid.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Giving money to charity can do a lot of good. That doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s the only way to do good.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">One of the most striking recognitions of this can be found in the Islamic tradition. The religion places a high premium on monetary charity, known as zakat. But, there\u2019s another form of giving: sadaqah. The Hadith, a collection of the sayings and traditions of the prophet Muhammad, contains a poetic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.zakat.org\/charitible-prophet-charity-hadith\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:explanation of sadaqah;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">explanation of sadaqah<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"mb-4 border-l-2 pl-5 italic text-tertiary\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">A sadaqah is due for every joint in each person on every day the sun comes up: to act justly between two people is a sadaqah; to help a man with his mount, lifting him onto it or hoisting up his belongings onto it, is a sadaqah; a good word is a sadaqah; and removing a harmful thing from the road is a sadaqah.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">In other words, sadaqah comes in many shapes and sizes; it\u2019s broader than mere charity. It\u2019s what I would call solidarity. And notice how it\u2019s arguably even more morally demanding than monetary charity. All charity requires is writing a check \u2014 an action that can be done dispassionately, and even effortlessly for someone lucky enough to have money. It doesn\u2019t require commitment to a broader project of solidarity or justice. In fact, a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/2018\/9\/5\/17821522\/anand-giridharadas-winner-take-all-ezra-klein-podcast\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:common critique;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">common critique<\/a> of charity is it can serve as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/2019\/5\/27\/18635923\/philanthropy-change-the-world-charity-phil-buchanan\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:a distraction from the unjust ways that wealth is created;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">a distraction from the unjust ways that wealth is created<\/a>. But sadaqah requires you to be engaged, emotionally and often physically, too.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">So, if you know people who don\u2019t donate money to charity, by all means, encourage them. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/future-perfect\/410573\/family-friends-charity-donations-communication-defensiveness\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Research suggests;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Research suggests<\/a> the most effective way to do this is to meet them with positive regard and empathy (not pressure or judginess) and to emphasize the joy you get out of giving (not the moral case for it). But above all, don\u2019t assume that they\u2019re not already doing a lot of good. They may be engaged in a different but equally valid practice of solidarity.<\/p>\n<p>Bonus: What I\u2019m reading<\/p>\n<ul class=\"mb-4\">\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.cosmos-institute.org\/p\/what-you-want-to-want\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:This helpful piece published by the Cosmos Institute;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">This helpful piece published by the Cosmos Institute<\/a> adds nuance to the debate over whether we\u2019re really \u201caddicted\u201d to tech. It draws on\u00a0the late American philosopher Harry Frankfurt, who argued that addiction involves conflict between first-order desires (what we want in the moment) and second-order desires (what we want to want).<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"mb-4\">\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Victorians were obsessed with self-improvement and self-discipline techniques meant to bring them in line with second-order desires \u2014 and a lot of our current cultural focus on optimization can be traced back to the Victorians\u2019 mindset. <a href=\"https:\/\/aeon.co\/essays\/victorian-diary-writers-kicked-off-our-age-of-self-optimisation\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:This Aeon essay;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">This Aeon essay<\/a> explains how they turned the simple practice of keeping a diary into a \u201cpromise of total control over time, place, and the self.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul class=\"mb-4\">\n<li class=\"ml-4 list-disc\">\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">I love <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/books\/2025\/11\/poem-traci-brimhall-this-beautiful-confusion\/685012\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:this poem by Traci Brimhall;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">this poem by Traci Brimhall<\/a>, which reads like a riposte to the Victorians. Representative snippet: \u201cCongratulations, Time. Look at you and your gorgeous minutes full of everything. Three cheers for the temp agency that hired this particular day, these particular clouds, this set of honking geese migrating through it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the writer of an ethical advice column, I get a lot of questions from people who really&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":421373,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[24023,210,517,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-421372","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-charity","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-mental-health","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115654585418501214","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421372","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421372"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421372\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/421373"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421372"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421372"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421372"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}