Selfless Service
… or why the greater good is more important than we are
A giant asteroid is approaching Earth and will most likely hit and kill a lot of people. Several attempts to remotely stop the asteroid have failed. The rather simple-minded driller Harry Stamper comes in and finds a solution: he detonates the bomb on the asteroid while standing on it and thus preventing the asteroid from ever reaching earth. He sacrifices himself for the greater good.
Bruce Willis as Harry Stamper was the hero in the disaster movie Armageddon.
Doing good prolongs lives
One of the most common traits of heroes is that they act in favour of the community even if it means sacrificing their self-interest. They act for the greater good even when they know that it could mean failure on a personal level. They are determined to do what is right. They will not stand by and watch the right thing NOT being done.
Psychologists call it altruism or pro-social behaviour and these terms basically refer to any action that benefits other people unconditionally; no matter if the giver benefits from that action at all.
Think about it; wouldn’t it be boring to just live for ourselves and to do only things that benefit us personally. What a meaningless self-centred life that would be.
The good news is that helping others and serving the community is not only morally good but also very good for our wellbeing and us.
There is a Chinese saying that goes: “If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody.” True words.
There is indeed overwhelming evidence from psychological studies that helping others reduces stress, promotes positive changes in the brain associated to happiness and even benefits our physical health. Oh, and doing good and helping others can actually prolong our lives. There are studies of older people that prove that those who give support to others live longer than those who don’t.
In addition, helping others often inspires us to lead a more physically active lifestyle, distracts us from our own problems, and can improve our self-esteem and competence.
Helping also enriches your life on a social level. If you serve the community, you will meet people you normally wouldn’t. Being part of a social group leads to a feeling of belonging and help reduce loneliness and isolation. (More of that in the chapter “Social”)
Also, you build up this memory bank of past actions when you did good to others and that will not only make you look back in more harmony and gratefulness but will also motivate you to do good again.
Create a ripple
Stanford psychologists found that altruistic behaviour is triggered more often by relationships, even if they are brief, than instincts.
This is called the “ripple effect”: like ripples expanding across the water when an object is dropped into it, your good deeds will find followers and be passed on.
So, set a good example. Be the frontrunner of good deeds. Working for the greater good encourages others to repeat the good deed that they’ve experienced through you. This continuous passing on of doing good eventually adds to a happier and better community.
Hopefully I could convince you that doing good and serving the greater good is worthy in every respect. For you, for your environment, for society as a whole.
So, go out and help others. Start small. Go volunteering. Help in the local soup kitchen. Share your skills and knowledge. Find yourself a mentee. Set a good example.
Give your time. The gift of time is often more valued and more satisfying than the gift of money. We obviously do not all have the same amount of money, but we all do have time on our hands. Pass your skills on. Don´t give the people fish but teach them how to fish.
Care about others and draw strength from it. Shared purpose gives us strength.
Especially if you hold a leadership responsibility of some kind you should help, set a good example and define the good norm for helping behaviour within your group. It will ripple.
There´s a limit to what we can earn and what wealth we can amass. But the ability to serve others is unlimited.
Heroes for the greater good
How about heroes? All heroes have one thing in common: Knowing that there is something more important than themselves. They would sacrifice themselves for the greater good, for the community, a good cause or people whom they love.
Think of Katniss Everdeen played by Jennifer Lawrence in The Hunger Games. Her love interest Peeta is threatened to be killed by an infection. The only way to retrieve medicine for him is to take part in a deadly game against physically superior opponents. Katniss takes part in this game even though she knows that it likely could mean her death.
Erin Brockovich is another good example. She puts her own personal and professional life in danger in order to help the community by exposing the bad deeds of a chemical corporation.
A hero who does good for the greater good does not have to be necessarily human. Think of the Iron Giant. When the military accidentally fire an atomic bomb at a populated village, the titular character flies off into space to intercept the bomb with his body and sacrifices himself.
Take some larger than life characters like Mother Theresa or Gandhi or Spartacus or Braveheart who all devoted and sacrificed their own lives for the greater good and whose legacy still lives on to the present day. People still walk in their footsteps and do good deeds because they set this great example.
It doesn’t have to be world-saving big things. Remember George Bailey in “It’s a wonderful life”. He does many small good things for his community and thus changes everybody’s lives around him for the better.
The list goes on and on. The bottom line is that heroes always serve the greater good and put themselves second. Otherwise they wouldn’t be heroes.
You´re a multi-billionaire? Great, but how do you treat other people?!
When we stop thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness. A success unshared is often failure. You won´t find true happiness by not caring about other people and the greater good.
It is not necessary to win in the end to make a story or a life great. It is only necessary that we invest in an ideal to follow and fight for what is right. There can be beauty in tragedies.
We’re all in this together. I mean all of us. Every single one on this beautiful planet. We are part of a larger whole and together we try to move this world’s progress a little inch forward every day.
Ultimate selflessness will create something bigger than ourselves and will live on long after we are gone. It is refreshing and energising working on a project that is larger than our life that could last for centuries to come.
Listen to Winston Churchill himself: “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give “
True words. Give. Heroes do.
