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Why building wealth can give you the capacity to do more good.

There is a sentence I came across recently that made me stop and think:

The most philanthropic thing you can do is get rich.

At first, I wasn't sure what to make of it. We tend to think of philanthropy as something that happens after generosity has already been established: you give your time, your money, your resources, or your influence to help someone else. Getting rich, on the other hand, can sound almost antithetical to that idea. It conjures images of accumulation, consumption, and the pursuit of more for the sake of more.

But the more I thought about the statement, the more I understood the argument behind it.

For some reason, we’ve gotten really good at separating our oral health from the rest of our health. 

We talk about going to the dentist as if it’s a completely separate appointment from taking care of our bodies. We think about cavities, cleanings, and flossing as “dental things” and everything else—heart health, blood sugar, inflammation, brain health—as something different. 

But your mouth is not an island. 

It’s part of your body. And the health of your mouth can influence what’s happening throughout the rest of it. 

Once you understand that connection, your daily oral care routine starts to feel a lot less like a chore and a lot more like an investment in your overall health.