We Unite by Helping Each Other
The feeling we receive from giving and receiving — it’s something like connection, unity, oneness
Continuing on the thread of focusing on what unites us more so than divides, a somewhat part-two-ish to this past Sunday’s post Food vs. Politics, helping people is another way in which we see past our differences.
It always seems to me that the most difficult of circumstances can be solved in the most simplistic of ways. But how easy it is to forget the gift of giving and receiving help.
It’s not just in the receiving of help that we benefit, we gain in the giving. It’s in the feeling of it. We don’t have to analyze it. We don’t have to look to the neurobiology effects of giving help, or the accolades we receive as a result, or the obligations people feel towards us as a result of our helping them. None of that matters. It’s just very simply that it feels good to come to the aid of friends, family, and complete strangers.
We can say that it’s a noble thing to do, or that it’s just being neighborly or kind. Yes, maybe all of that. But there is also selfish giving, like the kind exemplified in The Godfather when Don Corleone said to the undertaker, “Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day accept this justice as a gift on my daughter’s wedding day.” The implication is that the undertaker would not be able to refuse his don’s request if he values his life. This is not giving, this is quid pro quo, "a favor or advantage granted or expected in return for something.”
Helping is not about what we get in return, it’s just about giving. And the benefit we receive is in the indescribable feeling that overcomes us as we help.
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