Caring for others and trying to help those in need is not just a good thing, a christian thing, a sign of a good person. It's a fundamental human characteristic. Mammals help each other. However, helping others is also a privilege, not a duty. We need to remember that the first thing we must do to be helpful to poor people is... don't be one of them. If I'm living in poverty I am by definition unable to provide for myself, therefore also unable to provide for anyone else.

Additionally we're seeing an amplification of the liberal bleeding heart syndrome, which has been around forever but in recent years has expanded its ability to project guilt on all of us, making it our fault and our shame that there is suffering, anywhere in our world.

This is not helpful, and indeed can be quite harmful to millions of people, who go to sleep feeling anxious and depressed about the suffering they see, and wake up feeling helpless and guilty as though they personally had caused this suffering.

Let's remind ourselves of the oxygen mask analogy: grab ours first, then help others if you can.