Why helping us is good for us

Some time ago I came across the saying that you should help where you can. This short sentence may not look like much at first glance, but there is a lot behind it. Because often we refuse to help someone or with something because it would mean a, mostly, minimal effort for us.

To get a little out of my own comfort zone, I decided a while ago that I always offer my help, as long as it means only a little effort for me. Whether to help a work colleague briefly carrying, my brother with a move, to cook for friends or whatever else may arise.

Of course, not all tasks require the same amount of effort, but in most cases I find that the more unpleasant the helping, the more pleasant the feeling afterwards. I would even go so far as to say that it is human nature to want to make the world around us a little better. That's because we measure the world around us against our own yardstick. This means that if we treat our fellow human beings gladly and with charity, we also feel that they do the same to us. At least that is usually the case, but of course there are exceptions.

He who does nothing for others does nothing for himself."

Johann Wolfgang von goethe

Goethe already knew that it is personally good to help others. In a post a few weeks ago, I already went into it how helping others helps ourselves. For this reason, I will focus a little more here on why helping others is good for us.

There are several reasons for this. I will list the three that are most important to me here. But that does not mean that these are the only ones.

The first Point that came to my mind is that when we help others, we find solutions to problems that haven't happened to us yet, but could happen to us. For example, if we help someone who has a craft problem, we can learn how to solve that problem should it happen to us later. In life there is always something to learn, if we keep this in mind, we can get more out of just helping than just gratitude.

Second it is always good to do tasks that we feel less like doing. Of course, doing tasks that we feel like doing is also good, but in both cases, as Cicero already said "Pleasant is the work done.".

If someone needs help with a job that we don't feel like doing at all, then of course you don't have to do it. If you reproach the other person eternities later for helping you with this or that task, then you haven't quite understood the point of helping. You should approach it, like everything in life, with a certain positive attitude. As I said at the beginning of the article, most helping is about minimal effort. How you define minimal, however, is up to you.

The third and the last point I would like to discuss here is that if we help others, they are more likely to help us when we need it. This point may seem very selfish, but I think that as long as this is not the only reason, there is nothing wrong with it. After all, we are helping someone else and do not expect an IOU here. We are just assuming that if we ever need help, we might get it.

I believe that if more people would help each other with any problem, the world would be a little better. What are your motivations to help others? Is there an important point that I have completely forgotten here? A comment with your opinion would make us very happy.