I have found the pleasure button and it’s name is the Other. There really is nothing which gives me as much joy, as much deep pleasure, as doing something for someone else. Someone I know. And sometimes, someone I don’t know.
And I’m not alone. In the U.S., we give about 2.5.% of our income to charitable causes. And about a quarter of us volunteer either formally or informally. In fact, about 61,800,000 American give about 8,100,000,000 hours of service to American communities. (Visit VolunteeringInAmerica.gov for the rest of the stats.)
I get why people volunteer to help out. It’s the thought that your life should be about more than yourself. In the last couple of months I’ve kept wondering what my legacy is supposed to be. And then, I realized that wasn’t exactly the right question. ”My” legacy is not what’s important. What’s important is “what does the earth, my community, the people that I love need?” “What can I provide?” It’s a much easier question to answer because it’s right in front of me everyday.
The point of my life is to help another. If I help another, I really feel like I am squeezing the GodJuice down into life on a day-to-day basis. Not just living with a sense of the Divine, but living with a sense of the Divine here on earth.
We need to give and we need to open ourselves to receive. None of us can live life on our own. We all have needs that can only be met by someone outside of ourselves. If we accept that, we can more easily reach out a hand to help. And we can more easily reach out to ask for help. The beauty of our humanity lives in the vulnerability we share; not in the distance we put between ourselves. We are are inextricably linked one to the other and that inextricably links us to the Divine. And, the Divine to us.