Defaulting to generosity - while operating with healthy boundaries - is by far the most beneficial mindset.<p>The alternatives are:<p>Victim. "I am too weak and poor to help anyone but I expect people to help me." This belief corrodes you.<p>Stoic(can't think of a better word.) "I don't help anyone and therefore I don't expect anyone to help me". Well, better than the victim but ends up passing up many opportunities where others are genuinely ready to help.<p>Abuser "I don't bother to help others but I take advantage of them" - becomes obvious very quickly and you are ostracized and hated.<p>Doormat "I help everyone but because I don't have healthy boundaries, I end up attracting abusers and victims." Gross.<p>The "best people" are clear and confident with their boundaries and generous with their time and resources when people are on the right side of the boundary. I see this a lot with truly successful senior managers and businesspeople, for example.<p>Even in politics, when a candidate runs for office, they want to tell stories of "X came to me and needed help and I really took the time to hear them and help them (kindness). Then Y came and they sought to rip us off and I told them to go fuck themselves (boundaries)." We seek that as species, we expect that out of the best among us, and therefore we reward those who operate from this place (and it's good for lots of other reasons.)
I was doing all these things this week, and had a realization that the older I get more and more rely on me. I don't know how it got to be that way. But it was probably doing one kind thing followed by another. And now I'm getting all kinds of help requests. Just in the last week, I helped my cousin move (ridiculous amount of stuff), donated to my other cousins gofund me for his restaurant and stayed up 3 hours talking with him about his problems. Fixed a family friends laptop. The list go on. Its like snowball. I'm just accumulating connections I guess. So I suppose thats good, but on the other hand I probably spent 2 days last week on just doing things for people. If I reflect on it, I can see how this would improve someones mental health to be kind. You are connecting with people and interacting with them. So you definitely feel less lonely for example.
The only issue that I have, is that so many people (in my industry/nation/orbit) mistake kindness for weakness.<p>I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness." It isn't "rudeness," as so many people like to think of New Yorkers. They can be aggressively kind and generous. They are just aggressive.<p>I'm also in the tech industry, which seems to have a very aggressive and competitive culture.<p>It doesn't stop me from being kind and courteous, but it gets grating.<p>My experience is that, when someone mistakes courtesy for weakness, they start trying to "game" me. I put up with it for a bit, until they push too far.<p>Then the till gets slammed on their fingers.<p>They get very, <i>very</i> upset. Far more upset than if I had just disabused them early on.<p>I'm learning to enforce my boundaries earlier. It doesn't make me as popular, but it also prevents those "psycho freakouts."
These studies are always funny. So what this is trying to tell us is: Volunteering boosts your health, while the data only provides us with "volunteers are generally in better health". Now this study "tried" to adjust to that by some filtering, but this is still a pretty big leap. Essentially what they would need to do is this:<p>Have one group of people who "actively" is kind to people, i.e. they actually act on their desired.<p>Then compare the results to a control group who "wants" to be kind to people, ideally has a proven track record of being kind to people, but are not allowed to act on that during the duration of study. Then of course they also need to still be as satisfied and happy as before, otherwise they turn into a biased control group.<p>Then if there are no differences, and compared to another control group of "normal" humans, there is a statistically significant improvement in health, then and only then, they may be on to something... Otherwise this is just another case of survivor bias.<p>This is all just pointless. At least here it's for a good cause, but I always am amazed by what kind of conclusions people derive from the well established: Causation implies correlation... Erm, NOT.
in theory this looks good. reality is a bit different. I constantly have problems with my left and right neighbor (middle of pandemic and this a<i></i>hole is doing a barbecue with loud music since yesterday) about their lack of consideration (this in my parents house, where I am right now). In my apartment is no different... loud music, stumping on the floor... that kind of problem you have on a building. my father have a huge heart and does all kinds of good things for people, and I watch him getting screw over by the same people he helps (this includes people he hire to work for his small company).<p>each passing day I feel more and more inclined to buy me a piece of land with no one around it, build a small house in the center of it and never interact with this kind of people forever.
In my experience, being kind results in self-interested people taking advantage of you. People who want to climb the corporate ladder often prey on the kind, so I feel that kindness is "taught out" of people. There is a fine line between being kind and being a doormat. I don't really know where the line is though.
This is something I have struggled with in my life and am trying to work on. The older I get the more I feel that people generally suck, which is not an attitude I particularly care to have, but it has borne itself out a number of times in my past.<p>For most of my life I have assumed that people are mostly good, and while this may actually be true, when I reflect on some of the times in my life I was stressed out it was due to extending myself to others, to then later feel taken advantage of or on the hook for future favors.<p>As an example, I helped an older neighbor put up a wireless security camera. I had the same camera and I used a double-sided industrial strength adhesive to affix it to the side of my house. When my neighbor asked for help and I made it clear upfront that I'm not too handy, and this is just what worked for me. I didn't have a drill or screws for a proper install and in my case those weren't needed. Mine had been installed for 6 months at the time using the adhesive. I told her that if she was OK with that then I'm happy to get out the ladder and install it. Turns out, the siding material on her house was different than mine and her camera only stuck to it for a couple of hours before dropping off, swinging by its solar-panel's charging cable. She stormed over, knocked aggressively on my door during my dinner, and marched me over to the swinging camera to show it to me suspended in the breeze. Her girlfriend also commented on my inept handy work.<p>So, I helped a neighbor and was honest upfront with a disclaimer. She accepted and then when things didn't work out she made it my fault. I was the schmuck. Oh, and I setup the software on her computer and phone so she could get email alerts for motion activity. Despite the generosity I showed with my time, when the outcome wasn't ideal I got blow-back for my good deed.<p>This also reminds me of the time I let my choosing beggar neighbor hop on our WiFi network until he got his installed. Needless to say, he never did get his own and became indignant when I cut his access off after several months of free use. Yep, lots of people suck.
Be kind to everyone and it will return to you ten fold. It is what worked for me personally and I will continue doing it. Anyone who says that been kind is a weakness, just don't know what been kind really means. Happy holidays everyone!
Only if the people you are kind to appreciate that.<p>I grew up in a third world dog-eat-dog culture where kindness is generally equated with naivete and everyone has to keep their guard up against each other.<p>I'm still struggling with ping-ponging between being taken advantage of or being too mean. I don't know where to draw the line and with whom.<p>In the last couple months alone I've been played for a fool by a few people who, to put it simply, weren't deserving of kindness. It certainly has not been good for my health, mental or physical, and it's going to leave me too cold and cynical for someone who could actually use some kindness, until I being to feel bad about <i>that</i> and open myself up to being exploited and so the cycle repeats.
When you are kind to others, that tends to create a connection and a shared space with others. You belong more.<p>But what if you only make anonymous donations, or help others in ways that are "kind" but do not allow others to connect with you? What's the contribution of kindness as "morally positive actions", and the contribution of kindness as a "social(-izing) activity"?
In todays world, more often than not, being kind is interpreted as weakness.<p>This is especially true in modern corporate environments, where incentives are aligned to promote a dog eat dog world, no matter what the corporates speak about 'values'. It is compounded by a culture where not getting a promotion or not earning ever increasing salaries, is propagated and interpreted as undeserving, weak or useless.<p>Human nature is described in Hindu scriptures as 'restless and unpredictable as a drunken monkey, stung by a scorpion'.<p>So people learn to hide their kindness, and put up a facade of toughness. But just as a lie repeated a million times is percieved as truth, a kind personality hidden behind toughness loses itself and the person becomes a shell of their former selves.<p>That is why you have news stories today celebrating small acts of kindness, integrity, honesty or truthfulness, where the norm is those acts should be a standard part of every persons life.
They mention only controlling for health reasons. How do they control for that? Is it even realistic to control all the health reasons?
And what about thousands of other things, such as<p>1) People who like to take high risks, might be less keen on communal activities, like volunteering.<p>2) People who have bad habits might also be less likely to volunteer.<p>3) Depressed, stressed out, cynical people may be less likely to volunteer.<p>4) Poor people are less likely to donate and also have lower life expectancy.<p>5) People who died earlier didn't make it into that point in life where they would be able to donate. This one is easier to control though.<p>And probably countless of other things?
I'd need to go deep into the actual study to understand how they controlled for all of that, but right now it makes me very skeptical.
Well, yes, no, and maybe.<p>It depends on the giver and on the receiver; and therefore how healthy the relationship/exchange is. Let me explain:<p>* if the receiver is a narcissist/sociopath, for starter they won't value the "gift" received, nothing will ever be enough, and they always seem to attract plenty fo givers<p>* if the giver had the disease to please whereas their own worth is depended on being told "good job" or similar, it will eventually deteriorate since in the mind of the giver, what they give will always be > what they receive and won't end well.<p>* Then there's victimhood chic, where people feel that they need help on everything 24/7 and becomes a co-dependent relationship between them and - slowly but steadily - the entire world; and rapidly reaches a point of impasse since the needs keep escalating and the help keep diminishing<p>Buddha had the 4-part solution:<p>1. Help yourself<p>2. Climb a mountain, tell nobody<p>3. More suffering is needed<p>4. The enemy is a wonderful teacher
Be kind, do no harm, and take no shit. Even if you have to tell someone to go fuck themselves, you can find a kind way to do it, which might actually more effective.
At some point, I switched off mentally towards my colleagues. NGAF and being kind can pass for the same thing for a while but indifference has its own problems.
Does watching people be kind to others also have health benefits? I’ve noticed quite a bit of videos on YouTube about tipping people large sums of money or giving away items to strangers and use that as evidence that people like to watch them. Are people attracted (not consciously) to the same mental/physical benefit?
Yes. Also being kind to yourself goes a long way. Once we are above the self-credit, self-blame, etc., the brain creates a positive impact to our health. Accepting the reality gracefully also helps our health, though it is not same as being kind.
Many IRC channels have a culture of generosity, strangers assisting each other in real time. More generally, I wonder if this and working on open source projects would be equivalent to helping strangers/volunteering in real life.
His effective powerful prayers brought my lover back just in 24 hours.......<p>He has solution to all relationship/marriage problem and health issues such as herpes…? ???????????? ??? ??? ??<p>Robinson.buckler @ ‘ ‘ yahoo ‘ ‘ . ‘ ‘ com !!!!!!!<p>Thank you!!!!!!!
The book "Art of Happiness" surely agrees with this title, it has the points of view of science and religion (Buddhism) on it and reaches the same conclusion.<p>Great book.
Causation may be backwards here - people with good mental health are more likely to be kind to others because there is no mental baggage standing in the way.
As with basically every study that comes out these days in the social sciences, my response is: "We'll see."<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Replication_crisis</a>
> I live in New York, which has a basic culture of "hyper aggressiveness."<p>Are you sure you're not over-generalizing from your social circles? That's quite the generalization. I think I know a bunch of New-Yorkers who would disagree.
Well, yeah, being alone puts you at higher risk of schizophrenia and dementia, experiencing and expressing negative emotions makes you stressed and tired, we're social animals.<p>Kind of interesting how as a society we seem to be rejecting it - a lot of technology enables us to be alone or at least not in <i>direct</i> contact with others.<p>I wonder what the ramifications of that will be in the future.
Leaving out all the garbage - "Research actually testing whether volunteering could have a protective effect against Covid-19 has yet to be conducted" - the article is just Blue Zone Theory.<p>- Being social with other human beings (in person) is good for you.<p>- Light exercise is good for you.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone</a> has issues, but I think it's approximately good.