Why Help Others?

It’s a good question. Why should we work so hard at helping other people? Sometimes I find myself asking the same thing. Why not just help … me? I’m important too, after all. And I don’t see anyone going very far out of their way to do wonderful things for me. All of this gets to the very heart of The Humanity Project. Service to others as a way of life. It’s what we teach here. But living that way takes a great deal of effort. Why bother?

If we view helping others only as something “nice” or “good,” we won’t do it. None of us is a saint. People mistreat us, ignore us, misunderstand us. We feel hurt. We feel frightened. We feel angry. It doesn’t seem natural at first to focus our attention on others when we have our own urgent needs. In my experience, though, shifting my thoughts from helping myself to helping others immediately changes my feelings for the better. I stop thinking about me, first of all. So many of our problems can be worsened, often even created, by dwelling excessively on ourselves and our needs. When we end this cycle of thought, we usually feel as if a burden has been lifted. We also have a totally different perspective on our day. The issue becomes, “What can I do to help someone else – right now?” You, as the unique individual you are. How can you use your personality and experience, your interests and talents in any way to serve others? We’re not talking about volunteer work necessarily, though of course this can be part of your efforts. We’re talking about using that sense of humor to make someone smile. Or that musical ability to write a new song that you share with others. Or finding a better way to reach out to a family member who’s struggling. Whatever it may be.

Adopting this attitude, and learning to hang on to it throughout each day as much as possible, can help us recognize that we each are part of something larger than ourselves. Humanity. This world of ours truly is a collective enterprise. It’s possible, and it’s rational, to view everything you do all day long as some effort to serve others, to serve humanity. The quality of our work, the way we greet strangers, the attention we devote to driving our cars – everything we do affects other people. Recognizing this reality and viewing our lives in this way is no sacrifice. It’s a reflection of our deepest feelings about the human race. Buried inside all of us somewhere, we do care about each other. As we practice this giving lifestyle, we eventually see something else: Helping others sincerely and eagerly is simply a higher form of love. We learn to “get” in our lives most powerfully by giving. We receive a richer sense of connection, of meaning, of purpose as a direct result of working so hard to help others each day. We become happier in a way that few people achieve. That’s the answer to the question: Why help others? And that’s what The Humanity Project is all about.