Help Nick heal the world!

Where do I start...

Greetings all. My name is Nicholas Meyer. 

Recently I turned 22 and with that came the realization that the life I have been living these last 2 decades isn't the life I want to live forever. It's been in the back of my mind for a long time but now it's finally time I accept my purpose: I want to volunteer my life in any way I can. When I finally accepted this all my worries disappeared. In my mind, the only thing stopping people from volunteering was their own selfish greed. I guess I had this idea that millions of dollars were being donated to these causes so things such as food, board, and travel expenses would be paid for! I guess there's more to these organizations than meets the eyes and I have a feeling someone at the top is profiting from a lot of these causes. That realization really devastated me and kept me up for a few nights. I kept asking the questions "Why can't I just volunteer my life away?", "Why do my parents have to be well off for me to help?", "Where is all that donation money going if it isn't going towards feeding the volunteers?" 

Then, late last night, I had an epiphany. I have the time, will, and ability to devote my life to helping others but can't afford the expenses. On the flip side, there must be thousands of people out there that want to help and could afford these expenses but do not have the time or ability to volunteer (children, work, family, etc). 

That's when I figured starting a crowdsourcing page would be my best option. I understand that not everyone can afford to donate but there is a theory called the 'Six degrees of separation'. It basically states that we are only 6 people away at most from anyone else. Meaning if as many people share this post, and the people that see that post share it as well, and it continues on, I'm really only 6 shares away from anyone on this earth! While you many not be able to help my cause financially, everyone can take a quick moment and share my story. With luck my story will reach people who want to help these causes but can't be an actual volunteer themselves be it because of physical limitations, having a business to run, a family to take care of, or what have you. 

So please, just because you can't donate doesn't mean you can't help. You're only 1 share away from potentially helping me heal the world. 

So what causes am I looking at? The short answer is anything. The long answer is it all depends on how much is raised. If I had a choice I'd really love to either help build wells, houses, and free energy in third world countries or if possible, help endangered animals. 

http://globalworkandtravel.com/volunteer/africa/monkey-rehabilitation-conservation/

This page in particular really hit home with me. 

I'd also like to include, for those interested, a little backstory about how I got to where I am now...

Around age 11 I built my first computer. From there I spent virtually all my free time learning everything I could about computers. I taught myself a handful of programming languages (Java, C#, C++, Obj-C, Python, PERL, ActionScript, HTML, PHP, etc), then I moved on to understanding level design and animation (I used sourceSDK to create levels in popular games such as Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2, Left 4 Dead, Portal, etc). From ages 12 to 18 I basically spent all my free time learning every aspect of video game design. I took graphic art and design classes in high school to learn how to use adobe Photoshop & Illustrator, I took typing and technical writing classes to improve my typing speed and writing abilities as to help aid in writing code faster and developing the stories for the future games I wanted to make. The list of computer related courses I took goes on. In 2012 I attended Minnesota State University, Mankato for Computer Information Technology. I was a Deans lists student and again took many courses in programming and other computer related topics. Had life worked out I would have finished my degree this year and started my childhood dream of becoming a video game designer. Sadly, tragedy struck my family in 2014. Our house caught fire and my parents hadn't paid for insurance. The entire house was deemed unlivable due to heavy smoke and fire damage. My best friend and I spent our entire summer demolishing the smoke damaged house and doing our best to restore it. With our efforts, my parents were able to sell the house for twice as much as they had been offered right after it caught fire. Helping my parents instilled a sense of purpose. My entire life up until this point I always did things for me. I wanted to become a programmer so my life would be easy and I could make things I wanted to make and it was always me, me, me. The moment I truly started doing things for other people was the start

The moment I truly started doing things for other people was the beginning of me finally realizing my purpose on this earth was to spend the rest of my life helping others.