Do You Sacrifice Yourself to Help Others? The Third of 5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t

Taking Care of Yourself First is Not Selfishness: 

It is Absolutely Crucial to Your Ability to Help Others

By Marc Hardy, PhD

I consider myself a Unitarian Universalist (as did Ralph Waldo Emerson and Thomas Jefferson, so I am in good company). So I offer the example of the life of Jesus not to evangelize but as an allegory to make a point. Jesus shared his fire with many people, healing the sick and poor, preaching his spiritual truths and teaching wisdom to those who wanted to listen. The results of his efforts are well documented, but he did not do all of these things alone and he took care of himself. His disciples were always near him to assist his efforts, his needs were taken care of by others, and sitting at a meal with friends was not unusual. He took his spiritual health very seriously and prayed for days. He understood that in order to heal others and help them start anew, it was important that he honored himself as well. 

Recently, someone commented on one of my Facebook posts that my view is suspect because sometimes the people who need help the most are often the ones who are least ready to receive it and may be resistant to our help. However, the main point was missed: I very clearly stated that sacrificing yourself for others who do not respond to repeated acts of help is self destructive and serves no one. I never stated that we should withhold our encouragement from others simply because they do not immediately respond to our efforts. In the real world, however, as age brings us wisdom, we soon face the truth that there are those who continually enjoy playing the victim role and enjoy the attention they garner from others as a result. Yet, they make little attempt to help themselves and are chronically negative, pulling themselves and everyone else down into their quagmire, which extinguishes our light and does nothing to ignite their potential. Following the allegory of Jesus once again, even he advised us not to cast our pearls before swine, meaning not to extend our help and encouragement to others who are not ready for our message or cannot appreciate it. So let’s take a lesson from one of the greatest healers the world has ever known and take care of ourselves so we can better help others. 

Next time: Sharing Your Fire to Foster Independence Instead of Dependence

Do You Sacrifice Yourself to Help Others? The Second of 5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t

Share Your Fire Only with Those Who Want to be Ignited

By Marc Hardy, PhD

A wise friend once told me, “Marc, you can do anything you want in this world. But you can’t do everything you want.” We need to adapt that concept to sharing our fire with others in order to be effective and keep our flame bright. The truth is that we can help and encourage anyone we want to in this world, but we can’t help everyone. We can only help those who truly desire help and are thirsting for it. We need to discriminate so that we can identify those who are ready to accept the good that we have to give and will use the encouragement and tools we give them to create a better life. There are plenty of people who truly yearn for someone to believe in them and give them encouragement in their life so they can move to the next level, and they are the ones who are most likely to benefit from our efforts. Trying to help everyone, regardless of their commitment to help themselves, is not an effective way to spread the energy of our fire. 

Next week: Why taking care of yourself is the best thing you can do for others.

Do You Sacrifice Yourself to Help Others? The First of 5 Reasons Why You Shouldn’t

By Marc Hardy, Ph.D.

First let me reiterate upfront that I believe in paying forward to others the good that we have been given. In fact, I think helping others is what gives meaning to our lives. But I don’t believe it should be taken to the point of destroying our lives. Sacrificing our own emotional, mental, spiritual, physical and financial health is counter-productive to helping others and does not make the world a better place. The profound truth that we need to embrace is that, if we deplete ourselves, we cannot give to others what we no longer have. We need to constantly remind ourselves of this, because we givers are often not good at giving to ourselves. If we want to sustain a life of sharing our fire with others and leaving our mark on the world, we need to heed the following advice: 

Don’t let your ego drive you to an early death.

If you are reading this, you are probably a person I consider a “philanthropic pyromaniac” – you share your fire with anyone in need, often to the detriment of your own well-being. A big part of this is wanting to do good, but another part, one that is more ego-driven than it is altruistic, is that we want to be loved, revered and respected for our efforts. We want people to appreciate what we have done and acknowledge it once in a while. It’s not that we want the spotlight, it’s just that we don’t want to be taken for granted. Yet we often give to those who least appreciate or acknowledge our help, which causes us to give even more to them in the hopes it might be enough to garner a “thank you.” Eventually, we become exhausted from our efforts, feel that we have failed in some way to help them. We burn out and become bitter against them and most of mankind. Worst of all, the experience negatively affects all aspects of our health. So learn to spot the “life suckers” and avoid them like the plague.

Next Time: The Second of Five Reasons: Why you should Share your fire only with those who want to be ignited.