How do you deal with the poverty that you know exists?

One does not have to take college courses to know that there is poverty on this planet. We also know that people can disagree about the number of people in poverty and all those disagreements on the numbers does not mean that poverty is a figment of our imaginations.

Which means it is clear that we--you and I and billion others--go about our lives fully knowing that there are hundreds of millions of people around the world who are terribly poor.  Depending on our own economic levels, we spend money in various ways that we know will be tremendously useful if we spent it on the poor instead.

Many of us are religious too, and every religion instructs its believers to take care of the poor.  No religious leader teaches the faithful to ignore those in need.

Yet, we carry on with our lives while ignoring the poor.  Are we heartless bastards?

A few years ago, I reflected in this piece at Planetizen on my struggles in figuring out how to draw the line between my life and the problems of the world, especially about poverty:

Growing up in India I always felt awkward and uncomfortable when we watered our garden while squatters stood outside the fence hoping to collect a pot or two of water. Eating candies in a railway station while malnourished children begged for food was another guilt-provoking event.

My point is that I simply did not wake up thinking about this blog post--it has been a struggle all my life.  The post is merely a trigger response to a couple of readings that came my way.

First this, on world hunger--a lack of enough food:

I bet you don't even have to refer to the map-legend to figure out that green means good.

Though there are still roughly 870 million hungry people in the world according to the Food and Agriculture Organization, the trends are positive overall, with global hunger falling by one third since 1990.

870 million hungry people.  Think about that number for a minute.  It gets difficult, at least for that one minute, to eat while you read all this, right?

Isn't it amazing that we will continue on with our lives even after knowing that there are at least 870 million hungry people on this planet?  Including children?

We have no doubts that poverty is real.  So?

For reasons I cannot entirely explain, transformative change has always come from economic development, and economic development has always come from economic liberalization. It comes from trade, economic freedom, capital formation (including education), peace, and the absence of corruption. Mosquito nets will save lives, but they will not make the poor rich.
The best ways to assist with economic liberalization are unknown to me, but by participating in world trade, we make it more attractive for countries to join in and less attractive for countries to opt out. So, the best way for me to do good is to do what I already was doing.
Which is convenient and a relief, because I was going to keep doing it anyway.

Yes, you buying the iPhone not only makes you feel better, it also helps millions bring themselves out of poverty.  You don't believe me?  Ask the Chinese for evidence on this!