Being a Helpful Person, We Help Ourselves

‘Do not withhold good from those to whom it is due, when it is in your power to act.’ When you do have the ability and the opportunity to help someone, you must do so, but this should not lead to being a textbook people pleaser. Although there seem to be some minor similarities, the difference between helping others and helping one’s self is clear.

Our amount of thoughtfulness is part of one’s personality like introversion and extroversion. At first, it might seem that more agreeable people have an advantage of sorts. They can be more friendly, work better with others, or are more approachable. This is true to a certain extent, but there are definitely some disadvantages to a strong personality in either direction. The simplified downside of being too nice is that you become a people-pleaser and do not stand up for yourself. The consequence is that being too helpful hurts only you.

Depending on if someone is too helpful or not helpful at all people will always view what a person does differently. A person that is constantly helping others will be seen as more approachable by certain people. It is more likely that for others a “helpful” person is seen as a textbook people pleaser. The definition of a textbook people pleaser is a person who believes that they are less than most others on the planet and have the need to make themselves a doormat for others in order to fill their need for some purpose. Then, when someone decides they do not want to be a doormat they will be seen as selfish and narcissistic.

A popular theory is that helping others actually helps one’s self. Next time when you find yourself helping someone with their emotions, think about how your efforts may be providing you with an opportunity to practice for future situations, and consequently, improving your emotional well-being. Thus, when it comes to the benefits of emotional regulation the quote “For it is in the giving that we receive” can be applied. Now, there is a difference between helping others and thinking one’s purpose is to only serve others and not takin care of one’s self. If people often come to you to help them solve all their problems, it hurts you and them if they never try to solve a problem on their own. Constantly helping others for free like friends, family members, or coworkers can lead to spreading yourself too thin and overworking yourself.

Helping others can help improve one’s emotional intelligence. The exact definition of emotional intelligence according to Google is the ability to understand, use, and manage your own emotions in positive ways to relieve stress, effective communication, empathize with others, overcome challenges, and defuse conflict. Helping others can help improve one’s ability to communicate with others and helps develop empathy for others. It helps improve communication skills because part of communicating with others is listening. When helping others around you it is crucial to truly listen to what they are saying in order to be able to effectively help them. Helping one’s self will be able to help make you more aware of your own feelings. Being able to manage one’s feelings is so important because it can affect our relationship with friends, family, partners, or people in general. Placing your own health first can help in managing your own emotions and makes it easier to relieve stress as stated in the definition from the beginning. Once someone can relieve their stress all aspects of their life will greatly improve.

Helping others also includes volunteering or donating. We all know that feeling after volunteering at an animal shelter or a food bank. Helping others that way can make one’s self feel so happy and satisfied. Helping others also improves one’s physical health. Helping others can also benefit our own mental health and, more surprisingly, our wellbeing. Volunteering or donating to charities can have a positive impact on physical and mental health. It can improve physical health because helping others has been thought of as being a contributor to a longer life. Although, push yourself too much and it can lead to many other health issues. This is when learning to help one’s self is important. On the internet, self-care has become a thing of buying yourself expensive items and taking yourself on vacation but true self-care doesn’t have to be so expensive. Self-care can be as simple as eating better and exercising. It means drinking enough water and going to the doctor for simple check-ups or whenever you feel sick. Taking time to do these things for yourself can really affect your physical health and people constantly forget to do them. Something recommended by many articles and therapists is keeping a journal. This means writing down all your feelings to let the mind breathe and heal all the negative thoughts. Letting the mind clear up can help in achieving the simple tasks it takes to care for one’s self.

So, helping others and helping one’s self can go hand and hand. Although it is so very important to keep in mind to help one’s self because at the end of the day only you can depend on you. 

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