how the world turns

So, I've been pretty bad keeping up with this blog thing. I've been working a lot, trying to save up. I'm having a great time with my friends - and making new friends from work - but I feel like I'm starting to get a little disillusioned with how the world works. For instance, all the beggars here. I used to always give them a couple coins. But there are SO many that it's impossible. If I gave to every beggar I encountered walking from work to my house, I'd have no paycheck left by the time I reached home. The worst is the street kids. They're so sad. But one time I gave this little eight year old boy my staff meal and the next day I saw him smoking a cigarette! It's turning me into a cynical person, when I used to be somewhat of an optimist. Also a lot of the time with the street kids, you give them money but their parents or someone just takes it all for themselves. (Think Slumdog Millionaire.) It's just hard to live my relatively care-free life when there is such desperate poverty surrounding me. At home, it's easy to forget stuff like this exists, but it's pretty hard to ignore when you walk past it twenty times a day. But what can I do? What kind of influence can one person really have?