What does it mean to help someone?

What does it mean when we say we help someone? It effect is very straightforward, where we help so as to make the other party feel/live better. It can range from small deeds of picking up a tissue for a friend, or the passion for helping those in sickness, or creating a system where we are able to make a village get out of poverty. I don't suppose one questions the goodness about helping others. However, we have similarly recognised that the effect of help is not 100% positive. What does foreign aid mean, when it's tied to ideology. For instance, to receive aid, countries in Thailand during the 1997 Asian Financial crisis have to be forced to enact liberal reforms that caused more harm than good because IMF prosits that all forms of liberal markets to be good. Yet we know that markets do fail. On the other hand while an NGO may dig wells to help the villagers so that they do not need to travel for miles for water, they invariably cause soil salinisation which rendered farms useless.

 My question about aid/help is a personal one. It extends from the assumption of goodwill. What does it mean to us, when we extend our help to others? I can think of 3 reasons.

1) We help others because we sympathise or feel pity Yet, by feeling pity for someone, aren't we placing ourselves in a position of higher power? Who are we to judge that the person requires our pity and our aid? If we start from this position, then the help-ee will thus find legitimate reason to rely on the help-er. This forms what can be seen as a messiah-complex: where you gain legitimacy to your power because of the deeds you do for others. In this case, this is simply an exercise of power over someone's will.

2) We help others because we feel good When we help someone because we ultimately feel good about it, then wouldn't that stem from a very self-interested vantage point? Would one still help others if the act no longer feels good? Does a social worker quit because he/she no longer finds fulfilment in helping her clients? People are as fickle as the weather and therefore if we were to base humanity entirely on the goodwill of others, we would have died out long ago.

3) We help others because we want something in return The last one is often frowned upon. Quid pro quo is often ranked to be the least worthy of mention. Most people see it as a transaction, rather than 'altruism'. Yet I feel that this is the type of 'help' that gets things done. While we may not admit it, but most often in our personal relationships, we try to help others so that we can show our affection for them, or to also gain their affection.

So how do we resolve the issue of help/aid? I guess the issue is that while it starts from the "I", it can also end with the "I". We should not pretend that we're helping others because of our goodwill, indeed such a form of altruism can be easily tested and many are uncomfortable in saying or admitting that they are actually not 100% altruistic.

I think it's perfectly normal and while the best of us try to be 'good' and help others, we are also fallible. We don't have to be ashamed for feeling less that perfect, we're not gods. So how do we then resolve this dilemma? I think admission that you're helping for personal gain is the start. Yet this gain need not me something that is breeds negativity. Instead, we can see that helping others as helping ourselves. We instead of telling ourselves that we can show them a better way (1) as a gesture of sympathy, or to do something so that we feel good about ourselves in return (2) or to simply gain merit, we help because we know that we can learn more about ourselves at the end of the process.

It sounds like a conclusion we are familiar with and one wonders why bother wasting precious time reading through. If you have slept well, all this time without doubting whether what you feel or do is conscientiously "good" or "bad", then I am sorry to have wasted your time. However, if you're like me who have this constant nagging feeling - whether you're bringing more harm and good by helping others, then I hope this little article have brought some resolution. I think that humanity is capable of evil under the veil of good, as well as good under the veil of evil.

We don't necessary read minds or hearts, but we can read actions and while we've always thought that 'help' as something that is good in and of itself, where it stems from is equally if not more important that the present act. I guess the implications for writing so is so that we remain humble in our actions towards others, and through the example of "helping others", I hope to send a message that our good intentions may not always have the best outcome if we do not complete the cycle and understand that by helping others, we are in fact helping and learning more about ourselves. In the end, one might realise that the one most helped, is in fact the "I".