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A GOOD LIFE, IS BETTER LIVED BY GIVING THINGS THAN HAVING THINGS.
Helplessness is an unsolved puzzle. The helpless are often rough and unrefined, they do not have the mental gifts you possess. How do they survive? Who shall help the helpless?
Never has there been such a need for helping as there is today. All religions the world over lays emphasis on developing helping qualities for attaining spiritual salvation. The most powerful promises of blessing, protection, and refreshment in all faiths are anchored in the faith-filled act of help.
God gives you health and wealth in abundance for sharing it with the have-nots. No other activity gives you the fulfillment you experience by helping the helpless. Scientists have proved that all living things including plants, animals and even insects derive immense satisfaction and fulfillment in helping. Helping aims to meet basic needs and displays positive gratitude to God. Help the needy and you will be clean all over.
In the words of Ted Turner of CNN, "The more good I do, the more the money has come in".
Meaning of help and helpless
Helpmeans to give assistance, support or to be of use or benefit. Helpless means those lacking protection, support or defense. Help can be Direct, Indirect, Physical or Mental.
Rewards & Benefits of helping
Helping is an exercise in love and kindness. When you put your time, skills, energy and resources to help the helpless, you will definitely be made rich in every way so that you can be helping on every occasion. The common rewards and benefits of helping include:
Happiness & Joy
You will experience happiness and joy from helping. You can feel the depths of the joy that derives from it, a joy that certainly is different. You will have a sense of physical well being, both immediately after helping and when the service is remembered, and you are more likely to be happy with your life.
Students to perform well
Students who help others perform well in studies and become responsible citizens. A personal word of thanks or commiseration from the beneficiary motivates them to have greater social values and carrier goals. Scientists and psychologists have proved that cultivating helping habits in students will produce the following benefits:
increase their average life expectancy by 10 years
reduce their use and risk from Alcohol, Tobacco and Drugs by 70%.
lower their risk of suicide by 85%.
help them rebound from depression faster.
reduce their risk for committing a crime by 60%.
improve their attitude at school/college and increase their school/college attendance.
reduce their risk for rebelliousness
provide them with a life-long morals
3. Personal growth
Helping also provides new situations and new environments that you might not otherwise be exposed to. You see people in crisis and they unload their burden, you learn more about them and life in short time. Helping also can provide you with a sense of responsibility because people really depend on you. And it can help you develop a new understanding of people who are different from you, people with disabilities, people with no hope, people in financial need, sick kids, or the hopeless elderly.
4. Health and Long life
A California institute has demonstrated that helping others regularly brings significant health benefits. Scientists say that when we care for others it changes your mind and bring positive effects to your health, similar to the experience when we exercise. People who regularly assist others apart from family and friends have longer lives, less pain, stress, and depression, and greater self-esteem. Scientists say that health starts with love. If you shift your attention to positive deeds, your heart rhythm changes immediately. A change of HEART CHANGES EVERYTHING.
5. Reforms you
Before we start helping others, we first reform our ways. The person who helps others also helps the self. Only by first reforming oneself can the neighbour be reformed.
6. Helps to control Anger
Helping others will transmute out the anger your mind automatically controls and conserve.
7. Purify your heart
When you help others your spirit will develop an inner detachment, which removes egoism, hatred, jealousy, the idea of superiority,and replace it with humility, pure love, sympathy, tolerance and mercy. The helper comes to feel oneness and unity, in touch with all life.
8. A legacy of help-Your children will be inspired by your deeds. They will develop morals in life. A personal legacy of help is created.
9. Transforms the beneficiary -The beneficiary gets transformed and starts helping others.
10. God repays you in kind:- Whoever sows generously will also reap generously.
11. Honoring God-Whoever is kind to the needy honors God.
12. Giving back to community- If we want a better world to live in, it starts with you and me and our communities.
Choose a help that will uplift the helpless and refresh you
Helping has become a culture, thanks to people with good hearts. More than just a gimmick, putting aside a percentage of earnings towards help has become a norm with both rich and poor. How do you select the right help to rejuvenate thehelpless? A well-chosen help can uplift the helpless, while refreshing you and inspiring the people around you. Some popular norms and ways to help the helpless are:
a. Give- Giveyour best by giving yourself.
b. Help the young- Try to help deserving students. -Your help can make students achieve their lifetime dreams. In the process you transform Lives, Families and Communities.
c. Support - Give physical and mental support to the Aged, Helpless and Hopeless.
d. Field of Interest help-By establishing a Field of Interest, you can target your direct and indirect help to address needs in an important area of social life. E.g. Ageing, Youth, Women, Orphans e.t.c.
e. Help everyone- help means and includes giving to all in other religions and cultures. Their faith or race should not be considered; what matters should be they are fellow human beings.
f. Help voluntarily and happily: Bank on your wisdom and understanding and decide how and whom to help. Help them voluntarily and happily.
g. You can decide how much to help. Help according to your ability. You are to help from the surplus you have after meeting your own needs.
h. Physical Service-Do Volunteering or physical service if there is a witness in your heart.
i. Help with the right attitude & intention
Help others with a humble heart. Never help someone with pride or for some ulterior motive.
"The best way to find yourself, is to lose yourself in the service of others."
-- Mahatma Gandhi
Let helping be our lifetime activity.
(The writer Vinod Kuriakose can be contacted at [email protected]).