Helping others is good for the soul

If done for the right reasons

By Jim LaJoie

I volunteer at an organization that has a mission of helping seniors stay in their homes by providing practical assistance. This assistance ranges from driving someone to a medical appointment to climbing a ladder for light bulb or air filter replacement. I joined initially with a sincere desire to help others, but also, more selfishly, needing something to fill all the spare time I suddenly found myself with in retirement.

Allow me a brief aside: I was initially reluctant to write this post. Not that I don’t believe what you are about to read - I very much do - but more in viewing service to others as something that should be done quietly, without fanfare, a good deed performed for all the right reasons. I am sensitive, in an allergic way, to those who conspicuously help others. Much like those ostentatiously flaunting their religious beliefs (and bludgeoning those whose beliefs differ from theirs), these craven individuals will only provide service to another under the brightest of lights, performatively, pompously, narcissistically, executed merely to enhance one’s public persona and assuage their tender egos.

My view on volunteering, or doing any good deed, is it should be done quietly, without fanfare, in the purest form of serving.

Helping others strictly for service is noble, merely to foster an image despicable.

Now back to my post….

After having volunteered for a few months, I discovered that helping others feels good. Really good. I still have a desire, again, sincerely held, to be of service to others, but also find myself looking forward to the feeling that comes from providing a hand to someone in need. This feeling is a heady one, not self-righteous, more a sense of contentment that you are doing the right thing. It feels the right thing to do because it is.

Helping others, sincerely and altruistically, is good for the soul because it is who we intrinsically are as humans, or so I believe.

We are a social species that has survived for thousands of years by helping one another, collectively working together to not only endure but thrive. I am not a sociologist, anthropologist, or neuroscientist, but I am convinced that humans are hardwired to help other humans, something that can be lost in these hardened, ego-centric times. I write this with a deeply-held conviction that my belief isn’t just delusional, merely aspirational, naive or simple-minded, but an intrinsic human trait, a value embedded in all of us.

This view of service to others may seem wildly out of touch in the current political and social climate, but I will stubbornly hold onto, tenaciously cling, to this belief.

I wrote this post somewhat as a public service: do yourself a favor and volunteer to help someone without being asked. Perform a good deed in the shadows and the light will come from within.

Believe me, service to another will do as much for you as it does for the person being helped.

It will make you more human. We can use more of that these days.

About the author: Jim LaJoie resides in North Carolina.

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