Help Others | Lesson

Not helping is hurting.

What is a lesson?
A lesson is a decision that compounds to make a better life. Maybe the lesson is learned, read, or dreamed. Whether or not abided, the lesson is true for life. These lessons are not original. Publishing lessons is not an act of claiming the knowledge, but clarifying it.

A saint once said, “If you’re not helping others, you’re hurting them.”

My cognitive fallacy training taught me to dismiss such statements, prey to binary thinking: black or white, right or wrong, helpful or hurtful. But these words won’t quit their echoing between my ears.

I see the family’s dishes in the sink and the thought resonates, “If you’re not helping others, you’re hurting them.” In the beginning, we are driven by guilt or maybe a sense of duty, so I dutifully do the dishes.

I find linens, not mine, in the dryer. I could throw them onto the counter to be folded by another, but the thought returns, “If you’re not helping others, you’re hurting them.” Ugh. Per guilt, or superstition, or my own compulsive way, I fold the laundry.

I overhear a stranger in the airport, lost between the terminals. It is my preference not to speak to others, but knowing how to aid them, the thought returns, “If you’re not helping others, you’re hurting them,” and so I speak. “Excuse me. I couldn’t help but overhear you. Are you on flight DL661? Yea. I have it here. It moved to A34. Departing at 5:50, yea? Nice. So you’ll have twenty minutes or so before it starts boarding. Yea. My pleasure.”

But how do you know when to help someone? You mustn’t feel compelled to do the dishes for the entire party, nor the laundry for the entire fraternity, nor meddle in the affairs of every hapless stranger? No. Though, why not? But no. That’s not the most helpful point, not the true lesson. Guilt is not the driver here.

The devil’s advocate says, “No, there is a gray area. It is most certainly possible to do no good while doing no bad. There is a neutral state, neither helpful nor harmful. Why help others when others can help themselves?”

Say I don’t do the dishes. My father does his own dish. What harm is that? Maybe none. But let’s suppose another question. What love is brought by inaction?

When my father returns to the dirtied sink he has left, his reality is unchanged. What he has is what he receives. But when he returns to the sink whose dishes are done, perhaps he is delightfully surprised, receiving more than his expectations. Maybe he says, “Thank you,” and looks upon the universe as a benevolent friend. He receives more than he had, the product of which is love. Abundance. Infinite.

Now consider the feelings of the giver. Knowing or not of the receiver’s feelings, the giver enjoys the anticipation of what will be received, transmuting banal work into inspired service. Working for ourselves is a chore; working for each other is a gift.

Be it then that we never do our own dish, but in doing dishes for others, our dishes are done for us. To take this gift away from us should be to take away the joy of life. Can it then be reasoned true that if we are not helping others we are missing the opportunity for inspired living, and in losing that feeling of love we are hurting ourselves as much as others? I should reason.

“If you are not helping others, you are hurting them.”

The lesson is to help others whenever, however, and in whatever proportion is brought to us by our inspiration. Worry not how, for this lesson is irreversible. Having read these words is enough. Trust that the right opportunities will be there for you. The lesson is in remembrance, to act as we honor ourselves to be.