Intentions (Jan. 22)

When thing get tough in life it seems like there are numerous people who come out of the wood work with good intentions. Take for example that recently the small half island nation of Haiti has been hit be a bunch of eathquakes. It is only now after the quakes that people are trying to find a way to help out by donating money and other items to the relief effort. Two questions really come out of this. First, why is it that so few people were willing to help before the troubles? Second, do people outside of the situation really know what is needed? It seems that most problems could be solved before disaster strikes if one simply takes the time to observe circumstances. For instance, in the wealthy country of the USA building inspections and bridge inspections and other things are done prior to disasters happening which significantly minimizes the number of deaths that occur in a disaster, something that is not true in Haiti, part of the reason that this event was so disasterous. I cannot argue against the intentions of people at any point in the the process but often feel that good intentions could be so much more useful if they were directed better. It is simply taking a second to think before just blurting out anything.