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.
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