Who and Why Can I Help?

I feel as if I've always been focused on giving to those around me, but recently something about my giving has changed. It feels unclean. I feel as if helping others has become an obligation, not something I'm happy to do. Is it possible to do something altruistic without actually having compassion? Should we always expect to derive happiness from altruistic deeds? Should I always expect something in return, even if it is to be better liked? Is there something wrong with the way I approach aiding others?

What goes around comes around. Isn't is natural to expect SOMETHING back when we are giving?

With these questions in mind, I began How Can I Help? Although the writing warns against ego, I automatically lined myself up against Dass' criteria for a person capable of helping and created a checklist. He mentions "widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty"(Dass, 20), and even though I feel as if I can always have more love for those around me, I know I'm much more compassionate than the average person. Check. Here, the plot thickens as the subject turns to "self". I wonder as the text asks "How does who we are affect what we have to give?"(Dass, 21) Since childhood, we feel the need to isolate and define ourselves from others. We are developing egos. And our "selves" do not diminish as we grow older. We now "are now more conscience of our professional identity... as parents... as a liberal or a conservative"(Dass, 21) and these effect our disposition. We can't live in these tiny spheres and interact only with those like us. The solution is to "ONLY CONNECT",

"Only connect... Live in fragments no longer."

but more importantly to do so properly. Why do we help others? Because of what we need. This determines how we connect. How do we know what we need? Because of who we are. Thus, the act alone of helping people is not always correct. We must observe ourselves, our motives, and our methods of giving. Only then can we "feel transformed and connect to a deeper sense of identity"(Dass, 39).
Suddenly, a bell goes off in my mind. That's why I don't feel right. I'm missing that connection. A fortune cookie in the book reads "The geese have no intention to cast their reflections. The lake has no mind to receive their image"(Dass, 41),

We can create something beautiful without conscious effort; a reflection, for instance. But unlike nature, it is engaging ourselves in the subject that makes us human.

and I feel very much like I've been as mindless as the lake all this time. Mindlessly doing things simply because they're good rather than emotionally investing myself. Backtracking that train of philosophical thoughts, why am I missing that connection? What is it about me? I look back to see what has changed about me since I started feeling obligated rather than excited to help. I noticed right off the bat that I had become much more connected to those around me. But wasn't this supposed to be healthy? There's a thin line between "connected" and "dependent", and I may have bordered on "dependent". It was after I experienced the loss of a close friend, followed by the loss of all my high school friends as we all went our separate ways and the eventual loss of my significant other and my family as I moved to college. If the people around us define us, than what was I now?

We often wonder who we are and experience bouts of uncertainty and soul searching as a response to change.

"Despite all our ego's concerns and warnings of the dire consequences of not being "somebody special," we are capable of simply resting in our being. We simply are"(Dass, 41). Here ensues the soul search. What is my plain state of being? I believe finding it will restore my ability to connect. I'd also become much less efficient and hadn't achieved much. That's when I realized that I was so into helping others because I couldn't help myself. And maybe I'd been hoping this whole time that if I helped enough people, one day I'd run into one that could fix me. However, I need to dispel this thought from my mind, because as a friend reminded me, without a strong base I cannot truly help other people. In order to properly connect, I need to be solid and self-sufficient.

Mother Teresa aided millions using religion as her strength, her base.

Only after isolating myself and then reconnecting can I truly achieve my goals. Dass writes of his experience in India. He initially pities the beggars, but once he understands the culture versus his own, he "found in their eyes not... suffering... but looks of peace"(Dass, 73). He is able to differentiate and connect because he realizes who he is versus who they are. If I cannot identify myself, how can I truly identify those I want to help rather than pity them?
This introduces another very important aspect of connecting properly. Differentiating between compassion and pity. We should not help someone avoidantly. When we help a person, we should open ourselves to them. This is the definition of compassion. Compassion is to truly care about a person and thus seek to aid them. Thus we need to have an intimate understanding of suffering. As pointed out, we like to engage ourselves with suffering through friends or "through newspapers, soap operas, tragedies, and gossip with images of suffering"(Dass, 55).

Tragedy we can turn off is quite appealing.

Our desire to help those we engage ourselves can only be wholehearted if we truly understand them. "But it's one thing to have one's heart engaged, quite another to have it overwhelmed or broken"(Dass, 56). This sets up the two typical states of mind when giving advice. The adviser is concerned, and this emotional detachment allows for clarity, but not understanding. The advisee is devastated, and logic is skewed by emotion. But it's those very illogical emotions that require attention. When attempting to understand these emotions, it's important that the adviser is not sucked in. This is why a certain extent of isolation is important. In order to be able to advise others, I must know myself well. I must additionally let in the pain just as the advisee eventually must. "As long as I was pushing away the pain, it had me nailed to the wall. But then I stopped resisting it"(Dass, 78). Accepting pain is very important in defining yourself and moving on. As the dead days before finals began, I fell miserably ill. I was unable to take incompletes and I suddenly found myself with an overwhelming amount of work to do coupled with a weak body. Everyone told me they were proud and told me to be strong, just be strong. However, I found my resolution in a different shade. I cried. I cried until I didn't want to anymore.

Sometimes you need to cry to move on.

I let the unfairness sink in. Nature screwed me over. The college of liberal arts was full of inhuman assholes. And I'd procrastinated a bit, too. After it ran through me, however, I dried my tears and began to work. I'd come to terms with the circumstances, and I was ready to do something about it. I'm slowly defining myself, and next time I truly feel compassion for someone, I'll be ready to do something about it.