Tag: Helping Others

Thrive to Serve, Serve to Thrive

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Health, Relationships, Success

When being asked what the meaning of life is, I have a tendency to say 42 with my tongue firmly in my cheek. However, it is something I think about quite a lot, and currently, I have settled on the meaning of life to be to thrive and help others to thrive.

I could go into the many reasons for this, including the evolution of our socially focused species and the effects of feel good hormones when we do good for others, but essential if we thrive we are more able to help others, to serve them. Also, if we focus on serving others, our own well-being is improved, helping us to thrive. And on it goes.

I do not mean to be someone else’s servant, I mean to have the mindset to help others, to serve what they need to be happy and successful. Conversely, we also need to be open to allowing others to help us. Allowing this is a gift to the person helping us because it allows them to reap the rewards that come from helping other people.

This cycle goes on and on and can spread through the world, causing us all to thrive together. So, if we work on thriving in mind, body, and chi, we can serve others when they need us to, and in serving others, we thrive even more.

The Emptiness Of Compassion

Happiness, Health, Relationships

When we think of compassion we think of sympathising with those who are suffering in some way. This relationship with the person who is suffering is one with a them and a me, which has an innate division. In Buddhism compassion is very important, as is the concept of emptiness, which is essentially that all things are empty of labels, characteristics and preferences, to put it simply.

Compassion, in its best form, is one where there is no division between yourself and others; there is an innate unity. This would mean that the compassion you feel is for the suffering of another living being and the wish to end this suffering, because you see no difference between them and you. This is the kind of compassion I would advocate for, the kind that has no divisions, only an understanding of the suffering of others and the wish to end it.

It Might Just Work

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Leadership, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

Often we are just as scared that something we do will work as we are that it might fail. If it works we may need to do more of it and try more new things. It is scary to write your own script and not follow the rules set by those that have come before us.

Real value, however, is created when we go off script and do the right thing. Not because the rules said to do it, but because it made a difference. Do you want your gravestone to read he/she followed the rules or do you want it to say he/she made a difference?

If you aim to create value and make a difference, the method you end up using will come to you. You will find a way. It may be the route less travelled, but you will make a difference.

Lean In With Empathy

Happiness, Relationships, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

There are things in life we feel we are not equipped to deal with or to do, so we pull back and avoid these things. This often appears in our relationships. We pull back or we avoid topics of conversation or ways of being that scare us.

In my job I deal with complaints, so the person I talk to is usually upset, angry or both. I learned recently that I find it difficult to deal with people when they behave a certain way, so I don’t and I come across as cold and detail driven.

However, if i was to lean in with empathy, the conversation would be more productive and the other person would feel heard and respected. If you lean in with empathy in your lives the human connections you have will be much more rewarding.

Generously Unlock Your Passion

Achieving Goals, Happiness, Success

I read this post by Seth Godin and the last line struck me and I made it the title of this blog post. Normally we talk about passion when someone is interested in a hobby or supporting a football team or something. Passion is also talked about when people start their own business or start writing a blog like this.

The point of generously unlocking your passion is that when we are generous with the capabilities we have, we often find things that we really enjoy doing. We also get the benefit of feeling good, because we have been generous.

A blog can also be good example of this, because you are using words to try and benefit someone else, who you will never meet. I suppose starting a YouTube channel could also be done in a similar way.

Success is often increased by the number of people you help. The more people you help the more opportunities and potential income you will receive. However, if you do it to get something back, you will be less successful than if you were being whole heartedly generous. You reap what you sow, so to speak.

Work On Your Craft

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

When we think of someone’s craft we often think of Blacksmiths or some other vocation that requires training, often passed down through generations, and they normally have a specific purpose. However, I would like to broaden out the meaning of ‘craft’ to include the work that you do.

Mostly, we have jobs rather than vocations and often these jobs can feel like we are exchanging our time and effort for money to pay our bills. We can, however, look at our jobs and see the opportunities to make other people’s lives better. This can be seen as a craft, because it takes skill and purpose.

So, ask yourselves how you can make other people’s live better while you are doing your job and in your life generally. Then ask yourselves, how you could make this your craft. The fulfilment you will get from the work you do will then begin to grow.

Be Your Better Self

Happiness, Success, The Pathway To Fulfilment

In Mahayana Buddhism, the focus is on becoming a Bodhisattva, someone who delays attaining Nirvana, or enlightenment, in order to help others to attain it first. Mahayana means ‘The Great Vehicle.” In other words no one is left behind, the vehicle that gets us to enlightenment is big enough for everyone.

This way of thinking about life opens lots of possibilities to help other people less fortunate than ourselves. It allows us to see others as equal to ourselves, and it reduces the Ego, which can tell us that we deserve expensive things when there are those who don’t even have a home.

To be a Bodhisattva is to devote one’s life to serving others and helping them attain enlightenment. I am not saying that you should drop everything, convert to Buddhism and take the Bodhisattva vows. What I am saying is that when we serve others, when we aim to lift them up and help them shine, we consequently live happier lives.

What it means to be human is live in community where everyone has a place and everyone has the chance to thrive. If we try to live this way in the various communities that we are a part of, then we will slowly change the people we are connected to for the better. We will help to change the world for the better. Small steps make big change over time.

The Gift Of Giving

Happiness

Giving is a mind-set, it should not be limited to single acts of generosity. It is something that we can strive to do every moment of our lives. Each time someone shows me kindness by giving me something I try to do something similar for somebody else. I say try, because I do not always get the chance or think to do it, but I do try. And I think in giving back to others that which has been given to us, is putting positive actions out into the world, in the hope that they will be passed onto others again and again, so that we can all build a better world together, just by giving what we can, when we can.

One of the things that I have come to realise is a precious gift to give someone is to listen to them. To give your time to actively listen to what other people want to talk to you about. By ‘actively listen to them’ I mean to not allow your mind to wander, to give the person your full attention and to show them that you are listening to them, with your body language and the way you respond to what they are saying. It doesn’t matter if it is something seemingly unimportant, or something that is very difficult for the other person to deal with, whatever it is, just listening can be a gift.

Be A Hero Not A Superhero

Happiness, Success

I came across this note I made in my journal some time ago and felt it may resonate with some of you.

I was having a dream that felt like it was happening, but I also knew it was a dream. I was part of a team of superheroes trying to stop bad guys doing something bad, I can’t remember what. I clearly remember a lady I used to work with, who has just had her second child with her husband, appearing in a corridor as I was about to go into ‘battle’.

She said “do you have any milk I could borrow.” I stopped and calmly said, “of course, it’s in the fridge down the corridor on the right.” I then joined the other superheroes to save the world or something. The revelation for me is that when I calmly gave my previous colleague what they needed, this was me being who I am, someone who helps others, not a superhero. This is enough for me.

Also, to help others in simple ways can sometimes make us a hero without intending to be one.