What Is The Purpose Of Helping Others?

What's the point of doing that?

 

Depends on whos doing it. When I help someone else its almost as if it heals me in someway.

 

The Purpose for me is to spread the way i believe the world should work. By helping others (even people you dont know) you promote that we are all equal and equally in of help sometimes, If that makes sence? Like the term "Paying it forward" I have found a lot of people (in small town areas mostly) that just drop what they are doing for a minute or two, just to help me out with anything from changing a car tire to buying me a snack just because i look like i was hungry. ( I was hiking for a few days) I do the same as well such as raking a neighbors leaves because he/she hasnt had the time (most likly because they are lazy but we all have are days) or pulling over on the side of because you saw someone broke down. I dont do this all the time because I just didnt think about it but when I do, I ask myself One question "if that was me would i want someone to stop and help me out" and its normally a yes so Istop my day to help. You never know who is having a bad day week or year and that small thing that you did for someone can really turn a bad time around.

Bottom line: We live a world fill with all sorts of living things and if we didn't need each other what would be the point of Co-exsisting


Hope this helps

 

A quarter century ago I thot about this and wrote this essay about my personal altruism.

Altruism - what's in it for me?

by Shale
Nov. 1990

Human services work has been my primary occupation for the past two decades. I'm talking now about front-line, hands-on work with disturbed children, acute psychotics, mentally retarded, and senile geriatrics. I chose this course of helping others at a time of spiritual searching in my life, but the trials of dealing with people in emotional crisis or with demanding physical needs tempered that spiritual pursuit with the reality of my own needs and weaknesses.

Being aware of my weaknesses makes it very easy for me to be modest and embarrassed when outsiders tell me how wonderful I am to be doing such good work. They weren't there the times I blew it and yelled at the disturbed kids. They didn't feel my resentment at the demands of a client who kept waking me up all nite. They're not even aware of how many times I've burned out and left these various good works jobs. Those of us on the inside know too well that we are not saints. However, by the fact that none of these employments has ever made me rich, there may be altruistic reasons for pursuing this right livelihood.

By the way, did I mention cycling 14 miles to help a doctor treat patients in a free clinic in India? Does that qualify as altruism, a devotion to the interests of others? Strange, that until someone mentions it as "selfless service," I never really think of it. What about the health benefits I got from cycling along rural roads in India, or the experience of seeing people of a different culture and lifestyle close-up? It was exciting and fun. Even the work in the clinic, mostly cleaning abscesses and giving injections, was a learning experience for me and I learned these things for free. Yes, I did help my fellow humans and received no money for it, but somehow I see it more as an exchange than a service.

Now, I'm a volunteer at the Public Health Service Hospital in Miami. I give "Supportive Touch" massages to patients with AIDS. Besides me giving the physical benefits of a relaxing massage to a bed bound patient, there is the more valuable psychological benefits of touching someone who is often shunned by others, or just misses human contact. Sometimes people mention my good work and how God will reward me. If I anticipate payment from God then this service is not really selfless. But, just as I personally benefited from my "selfless service" in India, I won't wait for God's paycheck, for I'm sure God knows that I've already been dipping my hand in the till. For you see, as much as the patients enjoy receiving a massage, I enjoy giving them. Human touch is a simultaneous sensory communication that goes both ways. Again, my "selfless service" turns out to be nothing but an exchange with another person that also benefits me.

So I give supportive touch to those with a disease that repels many from touching them. I come into physical contact with a disparate group of people, from women who were infected by their husbands or transfusions, to the flamboyant homosexual, to detained I.V. drug users shackled to their beds with over-large chains. We relate solely within the context of their hospital stay; how I can give them some moral support, some physical comfort. It's a momentary distraction from the weight of their condition. Empathetically I can easily see myself faced with their fears; fears that most of us daily deny as we travel our own path to the same end. I can't allay their fears, but I give what I can for the moment that our lives touch, and I am enriched by the exchange. That's what's in it for me.

 

Pretty much what has been said and it depends on the situation...

Purpose of helping others can be to support a cause deemed worthy, to empathizing/sympathizing with others, to feel good about myself, to practice altruistic and/or selfless behavior.


I don't help others as often as I'd like, certainly nowhere near the extent as Shale has mentioned above but it is something I've thought about sometimes if/when I am in a position to do so.

 

To benefit your self in the long run by forming allies for your plans of world domination

 

I don't think there is a purpose. Empathy is a natural human response to hardship and tragedy.

I am troubled by how many people seem to lack empathy these days.

 

The Reason is because they need help
Is that the same thing as saying the Purpose ?

 

If you take the humor out of the statement and define world domination, not to mean some political or military feat, but simply to allude to all living being's vain pursuit of absolute power, then Cat nailed it.

 

How?

Most situations which involve helping others that I'm aware of involve compromising one's time, resources and/or energy..

 

Perhaps a better question is why not help others.

As Meliai stated, perhaps a lot of the issues we see in the world today come from not having empathy.

 

Rather than ask why, ask why not.
Why not help others. You help them, they help you, you both help someone else. Spread the love.

 

humans are naturally communal creatures. survival would be miserable, if not damn near impossible, without some sort of cooperation among members of society.

plus, you know, it's a tax write-off.

 

I want to see people have enough to eat, so I get great satisfaction in helping them. Tomorrow, I will help distribute fresh vegies, fruit, canned goods, and a Thanksgiving turkey/ham/chicken to over 1,000 "working poor" in our county. These families have at least one person working full time, but can't make ends meet.

 

I remember when I used to work bars and a man would come in every night to drink and play the poker machines. He'd say "Hello" and I'd reply "hey how are you?" His reply would always be the same. "Ah no point complaining, no one is going to listen to me anyway" with a smile and he'd take his drink and walk away. After getting to know him he was actually a really nice guy and I think from memory he worked aboriginal shelters and helped the naughty children. He was aboriginal himself, very intelligent, not a stereotypical aboriginal at all. But that response has always stuck with me. No point complaining, no one will listen to me anyway. Now that isn't asking for help, or really goes to help anything or anyone, but I always thought what if he really had something to say. So I asked him. And that's when I learned about his life and who he was and what he did. What a remarkable person.

I like helping people to a certain degree, like if I can clearly see they need help reaching for something, or they drop something etc. more trivial stuff I suppose, but I can't find myself helping beggars and homeless etc. I don't even donate to charity except eye foundations. Partly because I've had so many eye surgeries etc. and I know how important good vision is. Soon, or if one ever comes up I'll no doubt donate to a tinnitus foundation as I suffer from this too.

I think to feel good about yourself when helping someone else though a false sense of accomplishment. Like those people that "give back" because "it makes me feel better". That just seems selfish to me. But I also don't understand the people that do this full time for pretty much nothing. Maybe they really are good people.. Maybe I'm not such a good person? I don't know, don't know enough to care.

When I do help I don't feel a sense of accomplishment though, I just feel like what I do or what I did was just a natural reaction in myself. Maybe that's why I don't help enough, it doesn't feel natural? But, I'm happy with what I do. I don't feel accomplished, or a sense of pride, I'm just happy that, well, I'm not such a **** as some others are.

 

That's supposedly the idea, but is it really that common in actuality? Has anyone in this thread mentioned a time when they compromised anything for the sake of others?

 

^yes, i have.....as they needed me to.....

and I help alot of animals in stress and in need.....

i once heard someone say no one does anything unless it makes themselves feel better....but I have....before....which only made me feel worse at times.

 

One of the ways I help people is by volunteering at a hospital, bringing food, blankets, and a smile to bed bound patients. I do it because if I'm not there to do it, there isn't someone else. I'm the guy. If I'm not there to give dear old Mrs X a bagel and a conversation, then she will lack those things in her life, for that day, for that hour, for that moment. There's lots of philosophical ways to approach the "why" but for me it comes down to "how else am i going to spend my time? will a different activity be worth the lack of my presence in these peoples lives for those few hours?"

I guess you have to give a shit about other people.

 

yeah, or animals....and it is never for any rewards like that....but for knowing, maybe you helped an animal live.....and that is reward in itself.....also it is nice to see someone smile......so that is reward, too...