Helping Ease the Hurt
If you have read the story of how Stanford University started, then you would agree with me that it is such an inspiration to so many. The Stanfords, Jane and Leland lost their only child to typhoid at the age of 15. The couple had every right and every reason to turn their backs against the world at that time, but instead, they channelled their grief and their pain into an act of grace. Within a year of their son's death, they had made the founding grant for Stanford University, pledging to do for other people's children what they were not able to do for their own boy.
The Stanfords had suffered the worst thing any mom and dad can ever endure, yet they understood that helping others is the way we help ourselves. And this wisdom is increasingly supported by scientific and sociological research. It is no longer just woo-woo soft-skills talk. There is actually a helper's high, a spiritual surge you gain from serving others. I have come to learn that if you want to feel good, you have to go out and do some good.
The lesson we all learn here is clear, and that is, if you are hurting, you need to help somebody ease their hurt. If you are in pain, help somebody else's pain. And when you are in a mess, you get yourself out of the mess helping somebody out of theirs. And in the process, you get to become a member of the greatest fellowship of all, the sorority of compassion and the fraternity of service.
Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem for her children called "Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward." And she says at the end, "Live not for battles won; Live not for the-end-of-the-song; Live in the along." What she says reminds me of what Eckhart Tolle finds foot in, that you have to live for the present. You have to be in the moment. Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.
Moreover, this little book reminds me that I have to be a part of something; that I should not live for myself alone. In order to be truly happy, you and I must live along and we have to stand for something larger than our own self. Remember life is a reciprocal exchange. If we have to move forward, we have to give back.
That is the greatest lesson of life. To be happy, you have to give something back.
The Stanfords had suffered the worst thing any mom and dad can ever endure, yet they understood that helping others is the way we help ourselves. And this wisdom is increasingly supported by scientific and sociological research. It is no longer just woo-woo soft-skills talk. There is actually a helper's high, a spiritual surge you gain from serving others. I have come to learn that if you want to feel good, you have to go out and do some good.
The lesson we all learn here is clear, and that is, if you are hurting, you need to help somebody ease their hurt. If you are in pain, help somebody else's pain. And when you are in a mess, you get yourself out of the mess helping somebody out of theirs. And in the process, you get to become a member of the greatest fellowship of all, the sorority of compassion and the fraternity of service.
Gwendolyn Brooks wrote a poem for her children called "Speech to the Young: Speech to the Progress-Toward." And she says at the end, "Live not for battles won; Live not for the-end-of-the-song; Live in the along." What she says reminds me of what Eckhart Tolle finds foot in, that you have to live for the present. You have to be in the moment. Whatever has happened to you in your past has no power over this present moment, because life is now.
Moreover, this little book reminds me that I have to be a part of something; that I should not live for myself alone. In order to be truly happy, you and I must live along and we have to stand for something larger than our own self. Remember life is a reciprocal exchange. If we have to move forward, we have to give back.
That is the greatest lesson of life. To be happy, you have to give something back.
