How Can I Help?

(lyrics here)

Lend a helping hand: we say this more than we do

“It’s not something we really think about, merely the instinctive response of an open heart.” (Dass 5) Rarely do we have to stop and think, “should I help this person?” When a friend asks us for a pencil, we oblige; when a stranger asks us for the time, we give it to them willingly, and when asked for directions, we will always respond. However, I think our society is runs on the thought process of “someone else will help.” I am guilty of this—when students in my classes send out the mass email asking for notes or confirmation of a test date, I do not respond, thinking, “oh, someone else will help them.” Needless to say, if everyone thought this way, the poor person would not receive any help at all, and my justification would be fruitless.

“How much are we willing to give, and what are we holding on to?” (Dass 9) There are limits to my helpfulness, as there are with all people. I often ignore the people giving out fliers in the West Mall, and I have never given homeless people money. Yet if my friends or family asked for help, I would be willing to do anything. I find myself asking where I “draw the line…how much I’m prepared to give, and what I need to hold on to.” (Dass 13)

Helping others can easily contribute to helping ourselves

If we don’t ask for help, how can we help others? “We may have a difficult time facing the suffering of others because we don’t know how to deal with our own pain and fear” (Dass 14) I never thought much about it before, but it takes a lot for me to ask for help. There is too much pride in me, too much of a desire to seem knowledgeable and able, to allow myself to present a weakness or a flaw.

Yet when I am most lost within myself, when I am confused and questioning who I am, I am sometimes overcome with a desire to help, a “desire to feel useful” (Dass 10). In some skewed way, I believe that my aid to others will help me feel justified and perhaps more in tune with who I am. In reality, I don’t even know if half the time I’m helping for the sake of aiding other people, or just to help myself.

The case of Kitty Genovese led to an entire psychological phenomenon

An interesting note on the subject of not helping: I am reminded of the story of Kitty Genovese, whose murder demonstrated one of the most prevalent thought processes in our society. Kitty Genovese was a 28-year-old woman who was stabbed to death outside her apartment in Brooklyn. It was later discovered that many of her neighbors and passersby saw her being stabbed and simply did nothing to help. This led to the coining of the term “bystander effect”, in which individuals are less likely to help others in an emergency situation when other people are present. The probability of help is inversely proportional to the number of bystanders.