I'm seeing it everyday and I'm seeing it more than ever: people willing to help other people. This is amazing and it's the pinnacle of human altruism, probably the most precious gem on our moral crowns. Not only that many of us respond to the perceived needs of others when our paths happen to cross, but there is even a trend nowadays to actively search for recipients of help. If you have any doubt that this is happening, just check out the recent story of the Dancing Man. After a 4chan post showed something that resembled the bullying of an overweight man's attempt to dance, a viral Twitter campaign was launched in order to identify the Dancing Man and help him. Help him feel better about himself, help him feel better about the story, help him dance, in the end, and be the dancing man that everybody knew he could be.
It took many hashtags to find the Dancing Man. It took the power of a relatively large group of ladies whose self-declared aim was 'to do something special'. It even took a couple of celebrities on board, who offered their support, blessing and free DJ services. Finally, help could be offered. The Dancing Man was found, a party was organized and our hero had his chance to dance. While there's enough Twitter evidence to safely argue that the helpers were ecstatic about the help they were able to give, we don't really know much about how the Dancing Man himself really felt about all this story. His after-party tweet seems anything but enthusiastic: 'Trying to keep low profile!! Turned down couple interviews yesterday as well. Promise will provide interview when there.' Hangover or something deeper?
I recently googled 'helping others'. I was extremely curious to see what people thought about what helping others really meant. On the first results page, I came across articles with titles such as 10 Ways to Help Others That Will Lead You To Success and How Helping Others Can Reduce Stress and Increase Happiness. So, my intuition, recently fuelled by the whole Dancing Man story, wasn't failing me after all, pointing towards a sad, though realistic, conclusion. Helping has ceased to be something that we do primarily for others. We do it mainly for ourselves. Because it reduces stress. Because research has shown that people who help other people tend to be happier and to live longer. Because it makes us feel good about ourselves.
But is this really what helping others should be really about? In a relationship focused on giving and receiving help, which part should set the ground and parameters for action? The helper? Or the helped? I would say it is within the prerogatives of the helped to define the object of the helping relationship. Otherwise, a helper might very well offer you an extraordinarily tasty chocolate while you are dying of thirst. Or a beautiful pair of shoes that might suit you just wonderfully were they three sizes bigger. You cannot offer a person whatever you are ready to get rid of and label it as help. It just doesn't work this way. Call it 'offering' at most, but definitely not help because it isn't. Helping someone amounts to responding to a well-defined need of a person. Fulfilling this need might come at a greater cost for you, because if it is a real need, chances are that most of us experience it as well, which also includes you. But this is genuinely what help amounts to: the type of action which might leave you missing something (an object, a state of mind) because you took the time and effort to put yourself into someone else's shoes - which is never easy - and fill a gap that made a difference.
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