Why you need to help other people - article - Self-development

Many people say that we live to help others. By helping other people, we fulfill our purpose. It is impossible to know how true this is, but we can well know the feeling we experience when we help someone and see the difference. Something happens, we get a feeling of satisfaction and happiness, experience a surge of energy and determination.

I don't know if this is proof that helping others is our destiny, but I do know that there are plenty of reasons to try and help someone when we have the opportunity.

Feel the difference

We all have a unique set of skills and abilities. Given these abilities, we can either do extraordinary things around us or not. It is entirely up to you whether you want to change your life and what exactly you want to change about it.

Many people have high goals in their lives and want to be remembered as visionaries. They want to change and save the world.

Others want to be remembered simply as kind people who are always ready to help and listen to you if you need it.

Which one do you think is better?

The one who changes the world, or the one who helps the individual?

Do what you can with what you have

To be remembered you don't have to do incredible things, just be around people who you can save from a meaningless life and who you can help start leading the life they were meant to live.

Generosity is the key to lasting happiness

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson, author of the happy brain theory, discovered that the duration of happiness is influenced by:

ability to maintain a positive attitude;
ability to cope with negative conditions;
ability to concentrate;
generosity.

In The Book of Joy, the 14th Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu—the most influential Buddhist leaders of our time—share the eight pillars of sustainable happiness: perspective, humility, humor, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, compassion and generosity. All of them are somehow connected with helping others, but the last three especially.

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Take your gifts!

As we feel grateful for our lives and for what we have, we realize that some people are much less fortunate than we are. You can show compassion for others only by overcoming pain and suffering and learning to sympathize with yourself. Compassion motivates us to be generous.

Psychologist Robert Emmons, who has studied the phenomenon of gratitude for many years, has found that grateful people have a high level of empathy and a willingness to support another person. And this can be done in different ways.

In Buddhism, for example, there are three types of generosity:

donating material goods: buying a toy for a child, giving clothes to a poor person, providing financial support in difficult times, or paying for education;
giving fearlessness (protection, advice or consolation): listening and supporting a friend or colleague in difficult times, standing up for the weak, taking home a stray dog;
giving wisdom (explaining moral and ethical standards, practices that help you become happier): help you prepare for an exam, give a lecture free of charge, give you a useful book to read.

Fight for justice

In your life, you will often see that someone has been treated unfairly. This happens both professionally and socially. Many people who deserve recognition don't get it.

By starting to fight and making sure others get what they deserve, you will become a true hero. By doing so, you will make a lasting impact on their lives and will be rewarded with love and help in the future when you need it.

The law of karma says: whatever you do, you will get back three times as much. In this sense, helping other people is a selfish act, but it is still a good deed that you should do without fear, with love and with the knowledge that someday you will be rewarded for it.

Positive aspects of volunteering

We hear more and more often about people involved in volunteer activities. They definitely found the answer to the question of why they need to help people. And sometimes we are faced with calls to devote part of our time to this. However, I would like a more meaningful approach to this activity, a clear understanding of who is able to provide the necessary help and how, as well as an understanding of the benefits and advantages of volunteering.

Benefits for the volunteer himself

Volunteer activities are mainly carried out by people with certain character traits and psychological characteristics. The ability to deeply empathize, a sincere desire to share and alleviate the pain of others are consequences of developed sensuality and the ability to direct emotions outward - towards compassion.

People with a visual vector of the psyche possess such qualities. Realization of sensory potential by building emotional connections with others, helping those in need, trusting communication, good relationships is their desire, their natural task. It is for this reason that they are endowed with significantly greater emotionality compared to others.

Such people find themselves not only in volunteering, but also in such areas as medicine, teaching, art, social activities - where they are able to help others and carry cultural values. This is how they make sense of their life.

When we do not use the properties given to us for their intended purpose, it causes us suffering. And we often don’t even understand what makes us unhappy.

For those with the visual vector, unspent emotionality can manifest itself in the form of fears, anxiety, mood swings, hysterics, overthinking over trifles, a tendency to overthink things without reason, etc.

Not every person with a visual vector will volunteer - you need to be internally prepared for this. For some, implementation in everyday life may be enough - there are many opportunities to show compassion. However, volunteering allows you to make the most of your emotional output. The ability to help someone who is obviously worse off than you, without expecting anything in return, gives much more in the end:

getting rid of fears, emotional disorders and other negative conditions due to focus on higher-order feelings;
new acquaintances, a lot of communication - what the owner of the visual vector needs;
the opportunity to most fully realize one’s inner potential, thereby realizing one’s need and relevance, gaining the meaning of devoting energy and time for a significant goal.

This can be seen as an opportunity to make society and the world around us a little better and more meaningful, to transform them towards what they should someday become. A good reason why you need to help people?

Get things done

Compromise is the enemy of long-term commitment. If you make a commitment to help someone, by being a mentor or advocating for the rights of others, don't stop halfway. Finish what you start. Make sure that some changes occur so that your commitments do not turn out to be empty words.

The difference between stopping halfway and finishing the job will not be as big in terms of getting the work done, but it will be very noticeable to the person you are helping.

How to help people and how not to

The main principle of providing assistance: do no harm. You can probably remember situations when you wanted the best, but it turned out...

For example, many parents try to help their children with their studies. But it’s not always possible to do this for the good. Completely doing your child’s homework or some school project because he is tired and doesn’t have time is not help. On the contrary, it harms his development, prevents him from accepting responsibility and learning to distribute time and energy. Only knowledge acquired independently or with delicate, guiding help will be assimilated and retained for sure.

Or when it comes to parental assistance to grown-up children from wealthy families. Present the child with everything ready-made on a platter or give him the opportunity to express himself and achieve everything on his own, providing support and helping with advice - which will bring him more benefit?

Or a couple situation. The husband sits at home, does not look for work, drinks and suffers from his failures. His wife, feeling sorry for him, spins like a squirrel in a wheel and provides for him. That's the only way she can't help him. It is necessary to support each other in difficult situations. But by depriving a person of responsibility for his life, we rob him of the ability to cope with such situations.

Remember the saying: “Give a hungry man a fish and he will eat for a day; give him a fishing rod and he will eat for a lifetime”? You don’t need to solve a person’s problems for him, you need to help him find solutions.

There is no need to help people by taking actions in which you are incompetent. If you are not a doctor, you will not operate on a person who is injured, but take him to the hospital. Help with what you can really help. Let it not be through action, but through words of support and consolation, or the ability to listen, or by simply being there.

The assistance provided must be acceptable to the recipient of the assistance. There are situations when people are offended, insulted, upset if they are trying to help them. Sometimes people just don't know how to accept help from others. And sometimes people don’t know how to provide it. Remember that not everyone is ready to accept alms. Help out of pity comes from top to bottom, demonstrating a certain superiority over the recipient. Help should be based on sympathy, complicity, empathy - on the same level, together.

Next, let's talk about the phenomenon of volunteering.

Choosing the right volunteer job is critical

“Balance is key here,” says Shelley. “When choosing a volunteer position, make sure you can do what is asked of you calmly and happily, otherwise you will be faced with another source of stress.”

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Maintaining a balance between stepping out of your comfort zone and playing to your strengths will also help.

“While volunteer work that puts you in contact with others will likely benefit your mental well-being, be selective,” Shelley said. “If you experience social anxiety, group work may not be for you.”

What else do you need to know?

You can help not only privately. Recently, corporate charity, that is, the voluntary activities of a commercial organization aimed at supporting social projects and helping those in need, has been gaining momentum in the world. Some large companies go even further and organize charity programs, which are even easier to participate in than making a donation to the fund yourself. For example, they offer convenient digital solutions so that you can help with one click.

“Rounding” works on this principle in Yandex Go. From December 1, 2022, users of the Yandex Go application can do a good deed simply by using a taxi. To do this, just subscribe to “Rounding”, and the application will round the cost of the trip up. For example, from 362 rubles to 370. The difference will go towards paying for trips for the wards of charitable organizations with which the Yandex project “Help is Near” cooperates. Among them: “Galchonok”, “House with a Lighthouse”, “ORBI”, “Perspectives”, “Gift to an Angel”, “Spina Bifida”, “Fragile People”, “Nastenka”, “Leukemia Foundation” and others. Charitable organizations help people with limited mobility who find it difficult to move around the city on their own. A free taxi ride is an opportunity for them to get to rehabilitation, study, or other errands.

Real and naive altruism

Sometimes the necessary help can be ungrateful in the end, and difficult and unpleasant in the process. When there is an idea in the mind that altruism is about rose petals, a red carpet, gratitude and applause, it will not last long. But when help is done not out of a desire to acquire something, but out of one’s own choice, which is built on the basis of selflessness and mercy, a person will be able to easily endure both the difficulties of the helping process itself and ingratitude. Of course, it doesn't always end this way, but naive altruism collapses precisely when expectations collide with reality.

Naive altruism has the image of a benefactor, a savior who descends from the heights of his experience, opportunities, wealth and with one movement changes the life of a person who is then grateful to him all his life. In reality, this is not so, but it is the naive altruists who ultimately become the most hardened cynics who do not care about people. Out of disappointment. Disappointment is a consequence of expectations, and this already indicates that their altruism was self-serving.

Selflessness means no expectations and no reward in any form. Moreover, this means a realistic acceptance of the fact that help itself can be a test for the helper and may not always end well. When performing an operation, you should be prepared for the possibility that something will go wrong. This readiness means greater vigilance, preparedness, concentration. The aid must be precise and sterile, leaving no traces. The point of helping is not to be admired, but to help others overcome their gaps. And we should not only remember this every time we help others, but also always think about it so as not to exceed the measure of help.

Why do some people prefer to take while others prefer to give?

It turns out that without generosity, full-fledged, sustainable happiness is impossible. But why are some people always ready to share and support, while others cannot beg snow in winter?

Organizational psychologist, author of the bestseller “Take or Give” Adam Grant spent 10 years studying relationships between people in different organizations (from Google to US government agencies), interviewed more than 30 thousand people and came to the conclusion that in every team there are three types of personalities interacting: givers, takers and exchangers. These same people live side by side with us, travel on the subway and buses, and invite us on dates.

for givers to be needed and useful. They themselves offer help, take on the most difficult tasks, and stay late at work. Great guys. But they often burn out: no one supports them.

You can always ask the giver for something: from a tea bag to car keys for a couple of days. When he hears that a co-worker is moving, he'll happily spend the weekend helping out (and another week getting back treatment). He’ll come in for a cup of tea and, in between, start fixing the closet door.

Takers think exclusively about their own benefit and comfort. They evaluate each person from the point of view of benefit. There are many narcissists among those who take.

Mutual assistance is always relevant

And although the first lesson of self-sacrifice was shown in the Bible, similar actions are still relevant today, despite new social trends. For example, people interacting through new social approaches or social networks often help each other. Internet users, by providing social support to others, without knowing it, are helping themselves.

How does the giver receive health benefits beyond the good feelings that altruism provides? On the one hand, belonging to a group implies mutual approval and exchange of opinions. Giving (and receiving) support can also affect the sympathetic nervous and immune systems. One recent study found that providing support led to lower blood pressure and depression. In married couples, positive changes in the brain occurred when partners provided support to each other, as measured by functional MRI scans.

When we do good for others, it benefits us

“Research shows that we are happiest when we do something nice for others,” said Lori Santos, a psychology professor at Yale University who teaches the wildly popular “The Science of Well-Being” course. “People who volunteer tend to be happier than people who have never volunteered.”

Most of us have experienced those warm and pleasant feelings after doing a good deed. Social psychologist Naomi Eisenberger explains that there is a neurological reason for this feeling.

“When we help another person—whether holding a partner's hand while they're going through something painful or donating money to charity—we see reward-related brain activation,” Naomi notes.

Rules of selflessness

Altruism should be shown not only towards those in obvious need, but also towards everyone. An important thing to remember is that our altruism should not become the cause of others' suffering . If we help some but harm others, it is a zero-sum game, nothing will change. At the same time, it is always important to remember that altruism must be conscious and reasonable. It should not turn the one you help into a parasite who lives only due to your help. True help lies not in making a person’s life easier for a while, but in making it easier forever. Although there are also cases when you can make life easier for a while. For example, food assistance to low-income families or elderly people.

Excess altruism has a depressing effect
Dietrich Bonhoeffer

On the other hand, despite being unselfish and not selfish, altruism should be reasonable in the sense that it should not unduly harm your life and the lives of those you care about. To properly understand the balance between helping others and maintaining your life, you should remember the parable of the two trees, one of which gave everything to others, and the other directed everything towards its own growth. The first tree remained small and still gave all its strength to others. While the second, having gained a lot of strength, began to help others. This help was much greater than the help of the first tree, which the big tree also helped to grow and become big . The ability to help others comes from strength. With this in mind, you should dedicate not only your actions to others, but also your growth, which will allow you to help even more.

What kind of help can there be?

In fact, you and I often engage in minimal charity. For example, a neighbor asked us to tell us the recipe for carrot cake and we are happy to try. This is already a good thing, since we are transferring knowledge and skills.

Directions of charitable assistance:

Transfer of knowledge and skills. A person knows something, can do it and shares it free of charge. This is when you come to an orphanage and teach the girls how to cook. Or they gave the poor man a fishing rod and told him how to fish so as not to die of hunger. You create conditions so that those in need can then provide for themselves.
Transfer of property, food, household chemicals. You give away without self-interest what you own, or buy items from this group for another. For example, in 2014–2020, volunteers often collected food and household chemicals for refugees from the DPR and LPR. And many took part in these projects.
Providing services, performing work. This is not a written-off math test, although an underperforming child with an unfavorable family situation can be helped in this way. Here we are most often talking about services. For example, a high-quality lawyer can give advice for free, or a hairdresser can give you a haircut without paying.
Retail one-time assistance. When an organization or individual needs some kind of acquisition. For example, recently my friends and I donated a laptop to a shelter for children who found themselves in difficult living conditions, because they really needed a PC. This is a one-time donation to meet a specific need, but it is also considered charity.
Humanitarian assistance. Clothes for charity, medicine for treatment, food, starting an accessible education program or water purification efforts.
Social help. Selfless work in charity with vulnerable groups of the population. This is help to single women, children, disabled people, and elderly people.

Assistance in training disabled children to adapt to society
There are many areas for assistance. There is actually a lot of grief and worry in the world. In the city where I live alone, there are more than 50 different funds and organizations to help the poor, sick, disabled, victims of domestic violence, etc. At the same time, they will not refuse one-time assistance, New Year’s or any other event .

Rules of altruism:

help should be selfless and not have expectations of receiving something in return
help should be refused out of mercy and one's own choice, and not be imposed by feelings
assistance must be reasonable and conscious, that is, it must not cause harm either to the person being helped or to others
help should not become the cause of one’s own degradation
the end result should make the person independent of you whenever possible
help should be moderate, but constant and continuous; it is better to help little by little all the time than to help once and forget

Altruism is a selfless desire to help those in need, the reason for which is mercy and one’s own choice. Expectations and emotional coloring violate the principle of altruism, making it selfish. The essence of altruism should be understood deeply, but without one’s own experience and practice it will be impossible to conceptually understand it.

To become happier, you need to help others

The areas of our brain that process basic rewards, such as tasty food or winning the lottery, are also activated when we do something nice for other people.

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Unlike other pleasures in life, such as eating an entire chocolate cake or extreme travel, the benevolent nature of volunteering does not have negative side effects or downsides.

“Research to date suggests that the actions we perform for others can have a relatively long-lasting effect on happiness,” Laurie says. “You just need to remember how you did a good deed for your well-being to improve.”

However, the benefits don't end there. There are also more practical, obvious advantages.

Who does charity

There are caring people who want to help others and spend their nerves, money and time to do this. Someone may have experienced the same problem themselves, and someone wants to share their remedies.

Funds

These are non-profit organizations that exist on the basis of voluntary contributions from founders, legal entities or individuals. Foundations have goals: mercy for people, cultural education, educational or social programs. Each fund has statutory documents.

Foundations seek funds to achieve their goals. These could be voluntary donations or targeted fundraising. They can conduct commercial activities prescribed in the statute, invest, and receive grants.

Organizations

These are non-governmental non-profit organizations created to carry out charitable purposes. Organizations fulfill a “social order,” that is, they act in the interests of society or individual people.

They can be created in the form of an institution if the founder is a charitable organization.

These 2 types of institutions are practically no different from each other. I actually thought it was the same thing. But no. A CF (charitable foundation) is one of the types of BO (charitable organization). The point is that the status of non-profitability is different for CF and BO. The BO cannot constantly receive payments; the tax office has every right to collect what it is entitled to, although there will be periodic contributions.

In a charitable foundation, participants, founders, and their relatives cannot receive any profit at all. It only serves the purposes specified in the statute. Therefore, no black bookkeeping, everything should be as transparent as possible.

Churches

From time immemorial, the church was a place of shelter for the disadvantaged, a center of mercy for everyone who needed help. Just remember Hugo’s world-famous work “Les Miserables”. Serving people is the main mission of the church, which is why monastery shelters and rooms for visitors were opened.

And today, different denominations continue to provide assistance to victims of any incident who find themselves in difficult life situations. Volunteer associations often ask for church support for their activities. After all, there are spiritual people there who understand the value of human life and show empathy.

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me that church charitable foundations are almost the only institutions that can be trusted. At least, I have come across different groups on social networks, sites that create hype, collect a lot of money, and then disappear. Although there are also conscientious, proven organizations.

Personal charity

There are still good people on earth. When a person strives to develop internally, achieve success and prosperity in life, he understands that it is important not only to save money, but also to give.

Personal charity can be expressed in helping individuals or institutions. For example, one-time assistance to fire victims in the form of food and things. Or classes with people with disabilities. Or help, treatment and care for sick and homeless animals. Or gifts and toys for children, for example, on June 1 - Children's Day. Or individual assistance to doctors who are on the front line in the fight against coronavirus.

Sometimes it's just about being in the right place at the right time. I know that many psychologists provided free services to the relatives of those killed in a plane crash or after some kind of accident at an enterprise. Simply supporting a person in difficult times, when there is grief, is also necessary and important.

Corporate charity

When not one person, but a department or corporation allocates funds for good causes. In this case, a deduction for charity is legally issued and the institution helps its sponsored organizations.