After the Thanksgiving holiday I got to thinking… Do most people in the world like helping others? When I say most I mean it in the broadest sense of the word 7,8,9 outa 10 people like to help others. I went to a soup kitchen on the morning of Thanksgiving to help out and volunteer for a little while to help those less fortunate than I. Mrs.Phlosphr and I both went down to the soup kitchen at a local church and served up some great viddles for some of the elderly and less fortunate folks in the community.
When I left the Kitchen to go over the in-laws house I was swept by an overwhelming feeling of goodness. I felt physically great! And the only thing I could trace it back to was the simple fact that I helped a few people, gave of myself and liked it.
I am a teacher by trade so I help people indirectly I guess. It’s always nice when a student comes up at the end of a semester and says “Mr.Phlosphr your class really affected me … thanks…”
[thats only happened a couple times as I have only been teaching for 4 years] but I still like it everytime.
So those in the healthcare or social services fields must love helping people, otherwise why would they be doing it.?
I wonder if it is a common ancestral trait that humans like helping others?
I’m not sugar coating anything either, I know there are people, races who hate one another and would sooner chew off their arm than help another, but they must like helping with-in their own socio-cultural environs…right?
So who likes helping people and who can’t stand it for whatever reason?
As for hating to help others, please exclude the “not enough time in my schedule, or just plain lazy” excuse. If these fit you, pretend you just helped an elderly lady walk across a icy street…how do you feel?
Perhaps I’m kidding myself, who knows? - but I try to think how I would feel if I was in a similar situation and somebody helped me small acts of compassion cost me so little, but can mean a great deal to those on the receiving end. I hope I never need to find out first hand what it’s like to be down there.
I like helping people. Why? I don’t know. It’s just part of my basic ethics, I guess. I couldn’t imagine not trying to help people (and animals, and the environment.)
I agree with Mangetout in that it costs me little to help, but can mean a lot to whoever I am helping. Simple example: It’s easy to hold the door for the lady with the baby carriage, but the lady with the baby carriage really appreciates it. Plus, I believe in karmic justice, and thus any help you give will come back to you somehow.
I’ve never really gotten a particularly good feeling from helping people. At one point I volunteered at a homeless shelter/soup kitchen twice a week for about a year and I never had that feeling of satisfaction that others seemed to feel. Giving money to charities has likewise never provided that feeling either. Always just felt obligated to do it.
On a side note, I think I would now prefer to just give money to a shelter so that they could pay homeless people to do the jobs of some of the volunteers. There certainly seemed to be enough of them interested in doing that at the place I went.
Speaking about charity and volunteering, I used to be cynical about the ability of one person (or even one program) to solve major problems, but I’ve got a different view now. I think about my own life and the difference very small things have sometimes made. How one good day helped me make it through numerous bad ones, how one smile changed a week, how one good mentor gave me a new direction, etc. So now I believe that the efforts of one person or one organization can make a profound difference in the lives of people. Even if you can’t eradicate cancer or poverty or abuse or whatever the cause is, you are making someone’s life better. Can there be a nobler cause? And who knows what the ripple effects of your good act will be.
On a more ad-hoc basis, I love how people react when you pay them a compliment. Or grab the door when their hands are full. Or buy their lunch when they’re short a few bucks. Karma indeed.
Little Honey and I deliver meals to shut-ins every year on Thanksgiving Day. This year we delivered 27 meals with all the trimmings. It makes you feel good to sit down at your own dinner knowing that you’ve made the holiday a little nicer for someone else.
I am an insurance agent in NY State. It’s a small office and I can tell by the car that pulls in what client it is. If I know it is an elderly or disabled client, I go outside with my receipt book to take their payment at the car. It makes me feel good and I know they will never leave us and go to another agency.
I guess that I would say that I love helping people. I work in as a therapist in a home for trouble teenage girls, and I love it. I think that the idea of helping someone else makes me feel like I have done something to make a difference in a small way.
I like helping people. I donate money to a charity that helps battered women and children. I was never abused nor do I personally know anyone who was. I just happen to think that hurting a woman or child is about the lowest thing that can anyone could do. I’m not an angel. I think men who hit women and children should be beaten to death.
I have purchased gifts for children of needy families and in children’s homes. My family had very little money when I was a child. I like to think that I really made some kid’s Christmas, although I would not sign my name to the card saying what the kid wanted.
I often go out of my way to help people. Wipe things off the schedule of folks need a hand.
I have at least nine years of fairly-well full-on community service behind me, including membership of the local Lions Club, citizens advice bureau, community centre. I’ve just come out from under the pile-on that’s called organising a local festival and Santa Parade.
I do it so my community will be that much better. I do it because I believe my skills, knowledge and experience should be shared. I do it because, no matter how tired I feel, how much I shake from exhaustion sometimes – I revel in it. I love to make others happy, and that in turn makes me happy.
It’s genetic. Both my mother and grandmother were afflicted with the “helper bug”. But I don’t care. I know my community loves what I do, so I keep on doin’ it. One o’ these days, someone give me a real job doin’ what I love t’ do.
I like to help people, but it irritates me when people regard your kindness with a sense of entitlement.
When I serve lunch at the soup kiitchen, almost every single person I serve says, “Thank you for serving today” or “God bless” and these are people having a tough time and certainly are entitled to be preoccupied with their troubles. But they remember to be grateful for the less than wonderful food I’m dishing.
Then I have a co-worker, who I’ve done nice things for. She rarely thanks me and she isn’t in dire circumstances. She just thinks the world is there to serve her.
I don’t think thanks is too much to say. I’m not itching for gratitude, but some people make you wonder if you should even bother. I think that’s why I generally help people by donating or anonymous means. I can still fulfill my need to help others without wondering whether they appreciate it.
I certainly get a lot of enjoyment out of helping people. It makes me feel like I’ve actually done soemthing worthwhile with my day. It also makes me feel like I’ve done a little something to help keep me out of hell for all the other bad and selfish stuff I’ve done. I also really believe in the philosophy that if you do something good, you shouldn’t tell the world about it. Keep it to yourself. If you’re doing good things just so that people can see you and say “hey, what a great guy!” then you should probably re-examine your motives…
I get paid to improve the quality of life for persons with physical and mental disabilities. It’s something I would do for nothing and looking at my paycheque, it sometimes feels that way.
I derive satisfaction from using the skills I have to help people out although I sometimes get annoyed when people take my helpful nature for granted.
My SIL said something last week that really had an impact.
We had just finished shopping on the day after Thanksgiving and were on our way home when we saw a car broken down on an exit ramp. It was an older couple, it was cold, and they didn’t have a cell phone.
We stopped, called the wrecker for them, and waited until it arrived so the wife would have a warm place to sit. The husband stayed outside to direct people around his stalled car.
The husband wanted our addresses so he could thank us. We told him, “You just did.”
Anyway, my SIL said after the wrecker arrived and we left that there angels in this world, and we all just take turns. It gave me a nice feeling to be able to help this couple.
I also stop to pick up turtles that are crossing a road. Does it have to be human to count?
Ivylass - I know what you mean! I always pick snails up off our drive whenever I see them, just because I’m worried that someone will carelessly step on them. Now that’s gotta be worth a few points with the man upstairs
I assisted saving a boy in a freeway accident one day, and thought afterwards that there weren’t many things in life worth doing as much as that. It’s a great memory.
Equally, I wonder if anyone has this feeling that’s come to dwell more often, which is that – as complex as our modern world is – it’s hard to know when the impulse to “help” someone, in the big picture, actually helps. I hate feeling that I can’t actually do anything to solve the underlying problem.
You’re looking at it on too grand a scale. That boy you helped doesn’t care that you can’t save the world. You made a difference in “his” life. Perhaps because of that, he will someday make a difference in someone else’s life. And so on and so on.
I kind of grapple with this (in terms of being a philosophical question).
I like helping people but sometimes I think I do it more for recognition from others than because I am really giving and concerned. In the past (and, actually, presently) I have tried to keep my yapper shut when I’ve done something nice and have not told anyone but my dog. I don’t know if it helps any, but it certainly makes me think about doing things to just be a good person versus doing things so I can tell everyone what a good person I am.
Yeah, there is definately some personal satisfaction I get out of helping people, I don’t know why. Perhaps its because I made an influence on someone elses life, whether its small or big. Even just being polite and holding the door for someone makes me a somewhat happier person. I know that when somebody holds the door for me I appreciate it, it gives me the feeling that people really do care about each other, even if its someone they don’t know. For instance I fell to sleep on the subway a few weeks back and at the last stop (thankfully it was where I was getting off) some guy tapped me on the knee to wake me up. I’d never met the guy before, but the rest of the day that guy was my hero. Had he not tapped me on the knee, I would’ve been dozing at Court Square until the train turned around and went the other way. The guy was a super hero for the day, yet all he really did was save me from a minor inconvenience. So thinking of how that small action made me feel, I try to be helpful to other people to give them that same feeling of satisfaction, which in turn makes me feel like a better person.
