The Virtue of Being Helpful
It is often said that the most important insight into The Virtue of Being Helpful is helping others. But if this is true, why do we as a society feel so uncomfortable with that idea? After all, shouldn’t it be “The Virtue of Being Helpful” and not “The Virtue of Being Unhelpful”?
Perhaps, that overall societal concept is one of the reasons why people are uncomfortable with the thought of being helpful. Everyone has heard of someone who comes to you in times of need, yet how many of us have taken the time to think about who we can help, and who we should help? The answer may surprise you.
The most honest fact is that, most of us, probably, do not help those in need. We don’t even know them!
Sometimes there is a strong need for our attention, or for our attention alone. We come across people that need help, but we don’t want to bother them. We get bored because we are so busy with other things or have been told not to be bothered by someone else’s problem.
There are those of us who would, in our own small way, lend a hand, but we don’t know them at all. Sometimes we think they are easy to get along with. Some of us have so much trouble even communicating with those whom we know well.
We seem, even when we would like to be helpful, to be resistant to helping others. We tend to find the idea of being helpful distasteful, even if we do want to help.
I used to get up each morning ready to do something constructive. I got up, read the paper, went for a walk, or made some coffee. But when I got home, I was still thinking about what I needed to do to get to that little task.
But, when I realized that other people were also in need of help, I took the initiative to offer my help. I made it a point to make myself available whenever I could. That was, after all, my goal.
If others need help, we should give it to them. We should be willing to give up the time we are already spending at home to go help someone. In a very real sense, if we don’t, we are running around in circles.
You might say that, when we offer a tiny gesture of assistance, we catch a glimpse of a different person. We see that this person has lived without asking for help for quite some time.
Maybe we see that person still needs to ask for assistance, but we also see that he is making an effort to improve his circumstances. These tiny acts of generosity might just be enough to lift that person from his own misery.
Of course, this isn’t to say that The Virtue of Being Helpful is all about helping others. It’s not. It’s more of a guide to helping yourself.
