Today, I would like to focus on those people who take an interest in helping others. We live at a time when conflict is everywhere, and it ranges from the strictly verbal to the most violent of extremes. Indeed, if we turn to the news, whether print or electronic, the promotion of anger and enmity confronts us on a 24/7 basis. Nasty labels and poisonous vitriol thrown this way and that contaminate content and undercut all integrity, and yet it is more and more common everyday.
Time and Treasure
Still, amidst the argument and divisiveness there are those who make it a part of their lives to donate time and treasure for the benefit of others. Somehow they seem to be above the fray. How and why is that?
I have had the great honor of speaking to some of those folks who dedicate their lives to doing at least one good deed each day. Almost 30 years ago, I stumbled onto the idea that helping others was the best antidote to low self-esteem. I applied this theory with clients and saw wondrous results. Indeed, in my book, Choices and Illusions, I share a case study and suggest that we all keep a good deed journal that we use to record our day and reflect on every night at bedtime. Time and again, I have been told that helping others not only provides purpose to life, but it also frees the giver from petty worries and frustrations. The rewards exonerate them from pain and anguish even in the face of terminal illness.
Helping Others Helps Ourselves
How is that possible? The fact is, Gerald Jampolski showed many years ago in his Attitudinal Healing Centers, that a person experiencing intractable pain felt no pain whenever they went to the aid of another. Indeed, I remember Dr. Karen Wyatt relating how her mother continued helping others even while in the hospital unable to get out of bed. How? By praying for all the patients! Further, her efforts to help others appeared to relieve her own suffering. The long and the short of both of these examples: when we help others, we help ourselves!
In 1984 Roy Bey and I decided to create a business with the purpose of giving back. The business—Progressive Awareness Research (PAR). Today the business is best known for its patented InnerTalk technology. Recently my pretty bride, Ravinder, and I had a delightful conversation regarding the number of our customers who were genuine givers. Some of these amazing individuals have been with us since the very beginning. A few days ago, I had the privilege of speaking to one such giver, James, on the telephone. James was ordering five more CDs to give away to those in need, and he told me about the number of people he had been able to help by simply passing on a good word and an InnerTalk program.
Giving Thanks
As mentioned earlier, I shared this conversation with Ravinder and we began down a list of customers who practiced the same strategy as James. We were both surprised, although we shouldn’t have been, at the pure number of customers who helped others help themselves by sharing InnerTalk. Some, like James, have been with us since 1984, while others only discovered us a few years ago but have still placed over 50 orders in their efforts to help others.
Sometimes you help a person who goes on to help another, who then helps still another, and so on and you discover that the power of your action has been amplified by magnitudes over time. Ravinder and I are both proud and humbled by the actions of these wonderful people to say nothing of the great gratitude we feel for them in our hearts.
Regardless of what you choose to share or help another with, take it from someone who knows: Helping Others Is the Best Way to Help Yourself!
Thanks for the read and blessings to all!
Eldon Taylor
Provocative Enlightenment
NY Time Bestselling Author of Choices and Illusions
www.eldontaylor.com