Serve to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth
Muhammad Ali
When I was 15 years old, I proposed to take my seat to one old woman who came into the bus sad and tired. She did not sit down and shouted at me angrily: “Am I really so old and washy? See, I am not an invalid!"
Thanks to this episode, I realized that we needed to treat the “Pay It Forward” idea very carefully.
I had many questions, doubts, real-world examples and observations, before I came to my today’s vision of “Pay It Forward” concept. The main idea is that it is worth “paying it forward”, but not always and not to everybody.
Tip #1. Avoid positive harm
Count the costs before giving a helping hand to somebody. Does he or she really need your help? If you do nothing for him or her, what will happen then? Sometimes it just seems that somebody cannot survive without you. In reality, many people do nothing but simulate victim and parasite on your sympathy. On the other hand, it is vitally necessary for people to face most of the challenges and overcome them on their own. Your permanent care will probably prevent them from improvement.
Tip #2. Support, do not overhelp
In many cases, people need just someone’s attention and time in order to move on. Listen to them, stay with them, but do not take responsibility for their life in order to let them do their own mistakes and learn their own lessons.
Tip #3. Not too much
If you get somebody’s help unexpectedly, you will be most probably pleasantly surprised. If somebody cares about you permanently, you will get used to it and will take it as granted. Do not leave people in case of emergency, glad them by sudden gifts or favors but do not annoy them by yourself.
Tip #4. Do not expect reward
My former psychologist told me once, that we all expect benefit from everything that we do. That every time when we help another person somehow, we form expectations from this person and become very disappointed when the object of our help does not behave as we expected. I faced with this myself, whereupon I formulated this statement: help and forget. Never try to become an owner of someone’s soul for your impact or to get bonuses from it. Otherwise, your help may entail to another problems for someone.
Tip #5. Remember about yourself
I believe that the best way to serve other people is to be inspiring example for them, but not to live for them and not to solve daily issues for them. Many people understand the statement of Muhammad Ali too literally and forget about themselves trying to do a lot for others. Every person has his own talents from his birth. To open them, we need to spent all our time, energy and resources. Only in this case we will be able to serve others in the best way.
Therefore, we can and should use the brilliant, light and beneficent “Pay It Forward” idea in real world but carefully and mostly as a basis for our self-improvement.
Feb, 2014