“You were born with the ability to change someone’s life. Don’t ever waste it.”
We often hear that we must help ourselves before we can help someone else, and to some extent I believe that to be true. But I also find it to be true that one of the best ways to help ourselves is to spend our time helping others.
You don’t have to take my word for it, there is tremendous amounts of research that have proven that doing good and being kind will make you happier and healthier.
“People who volunteer tend to have higher self-esteem, psychological well-being, and happiness,” Mark Snyder, a psychologist and head of the Center for the Study of the Individual and Society at the University of Minnesota says. “All of these things go up as their feelings of social connectedness goes up, which in reality, it does. It also improves their health and even their longevity.”
Another study states that “Psychologists have identified a typical state of euphoria reported by those engaged in charitable activity. They call it “helper’s high,” and it’s based on the theory that giving produces endorphins in the brain that provide a mild version of a morphine high.” (excerpt from article by James Baraz and Shoshana Alexander).
Carolyn Schwartz, a research professor at the University of Massachusetts Medical School did a research study which resulted in the following finding: Those who helped others were significantly happier and less depressed than those who didn’t.
And the list of studies could go on and on. The more you research it the more you can’t deny that helping others is the very best way to help yourself.
I believe that each of us have the ability to change other people’s life for the better. Regardless of our circumstances we can always find a way to help someone else. Even if that help comes through the form of something as simple as a smile or a hello. You never know when just the act of acknowledging another person’s worth may be all it will take to save that person’s life.
Never underestimate or dismiss your ability to change someone else’s life because you may be the very person that can do it.
~Amy Rees Anderson (author of the book “What Awesome Looks Like: How To Excel in Business & Life” )