Help others to help yourself

I should be studying, but I am blogging. My priorities are jumbled, and frankly, I am not worried about it at the moment. Feelings impress their the desire to be shared and so I am acquiescing, like usual, to their demands.

Actually, I just got off a two hour phone conversation with a dear friend, and my mindset has changed, and so my topic is changing. I am listening to dance music and the upbeat tempo aides in the urgency to write my message before I sleep and get up in 5 hours to work out.

I feel so often like I have no control in my life. Obviously, there are many individuals who experience this feeling as well. Yet, I think we often overlook the number one way we deal with lack of control in our lives. We feel more in control of ourselves as we give advice to others and think that somehow by giving them the advice that often we are to take ourselves, that we are somehow aiding ourselves.

Do we really help that much when we listen, advise, listen, console, and then advise some more. I am a firm believer that we are in fact helping.

What is help? I am no miracle worker. I am not expecting anything I say to change someone's life forever. I am not expecting to move mountains or change the course of history, let alone one life with some motivational speech I ever give. I am however hoping to make a small disturbance, a ripple, a pebble thrown in the midst of a mighty river. That ripple in actuality does little nothing to the course of the river. However, the accumulation of pebbles in a river, thousands or even millions, acts like a dam and changes the course. In fact, the slow changes move a river more than a large dam will. Lifestyle changes that are immediate are like forcing a river to dam. The river stops its course, but has a tendency to overrun its edges and spreads in many directions, in fact it is directionless, other than moving down with gravity towards the path or least resistance. When we force people to change immediately, we will many times get the same chaotic effect. The small amount of pebbles that change a course in a small manner, allow the river time to cut away at the bank, and over years, thousands, it carves a new path, one of its own, and thus the accumulation of millions of pebbles brings about the desired result with a direction consistent with the purpose throughout.

When I talk to someone I just want to be the small pebble that through a gradual effect will change their life. In fact, if I don't change someone's life in a small way every day of my life I have wasted another day. I think our life is meant to be about gradual changes. Albeit there exists time when we need to make drastic changes, it is usually the slow change that is demanded by society and/or religion. If we all aiding each other in those changes through small acts of kindness of words of advise we would accomplish the task quicker. Thus a zion like people, one that cares as much for the others as for themselves, will usually accomplish more quicker.

This reminds me of the principles of Adam Smith. Those who hate capitalism, and its first proponent, Adam Smith, do not understand him. His principle of self interest, not greed, but self interest cannot be truly understand merely from reading "The Wealth of Nations" but only from a study of it as well as "Theory of Moral Sentiments." A people without morality acting selfishly with greed will never be able to progress far with capitalism. Rather with rule of law and a moral people, democracy and capitalism can exist and expand a community and country. In our lives we cannot progress or at least not at the rate that is possible without communal help. This help cannot be achieved without the ability to trust and rely on others, and that trust and reliance is built off of rule of law and a belief in the morality of the people. As a people are moral, the reliance increases and thus social contracts enforced by rule of law are more likely to occur, and thus society progresses at a greater rate.

Ultimately the principle I have beat around this entire is that it is more important to help others than yourself. By acting in our self interest often we will help others, and then the side effects give us a greater benefit than if we tried to help ourselves. When we give advise, or take it, we need to understand nothing changes overnight but if we are bettered for a moment, the ripples of the river, then we have made an impact. Then as those moments accumulate over a lifetime we are able to change the course of any life and thereby the world.