It is a glorious thing to be indifferent to suffering, but only to one's own suffering.
- Robert Lynd, writer (1879-1949)
Aye, there's the rub.
How can I help others with their suffering if I can't help myself?
By helping others.
Everybody has problems. Most people have problems we never know about because they don't make them public. But they have them all right.
Everyone knows one or more people who help others, so much so that they can be said to be selfless. Sometimes they are considered to be community heroes.
Have you every spoken to one of these people? Without exception, they are concerned about how they can help others and rarely mention anything about their own problems. Because their own problems are not important to them.
They don't suffer with their own problems because they know they are helping others with their more severe problems.
Think that's hard? Try it. It's not.
Nothing lightens your life load more than helping others who need it.
There's one more thing, something you may consider questionable. Three things, actually. First, these people feel better about themselves than they did before beginning to help others. Second, they seem to be able to manage their own problems much easier. Third, some mysterious form of "good luck" seems to befall them, such that good things happen to them when they need it most.
I'm not saying that God helps them. I don't really believe that.
I think it's the Tooth Fairy.
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help you lessen the hurt of your problems by focussing your attention on helping others.
Learn more at http://billallin.com
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Comments: 30
Fran, do you happen to have a contact number for the Tooth Fairy?
Lori, I hope to get back the my web site and change several things, maybe on the weekend.
It's probably the fact that while helping others in need, you forget your own problems as well. And quite often other people have problems far worse than your own if you just stop wallowing in self-pity.
Actually, Brenda, very few people are bad. Everyone is struggling to make lives for themselves and sometimes in their thrashing around they look worse than they are. Then the media make almost everyone look bad because they only focus on the worst people.
I wonder if we are naturally predisposed to help each other. Then when we don't, we suffer from focussing only on our own problems, as if they are all that are important in the world (at least to us). This could be a characteristic of a social species of animal.
This was my first attempt to embed a link in a comment, so please forgive if it doesn't work.
Helping Others by Accepting Help
Serina, you made your article so in-your-face and so blatant that the other person felt safe to share. One of the highest priorities of a person with problems is to know that others have problems too, many of them worse. The boat may be leaky, but there are others to help bail and you will reach a new shore.
Brava! for your bold venture.
Debra, OK you can be the poster child too. There is too much good lesson there for me to comment on without gilting the lily.
My proposition is that life should not be our main teacher about life. People know this stuff but they ae not teaching it because they don't udnerstand how important it is that they do.
I don't know Latin (except by reputation), but I understand the saying "docendo disco" means "by teaching I learn." I believe you understand.
Candida, you raise an interesting point. It's not just help that is hard for many to accept because of the stigma of "failure" attached to it, but love is also hard for many to accept. If you can't imagine how someone could love you, what attitude will you have toward others who try? (recipe for abuse--don't try this at home)
Debra, egocentric people can't imagine that the world really doesn't revolve around them. To them, everyone is a doormat where they can take their next step.
I hope you kept that hat.