"One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself."
It's the Second Splendid Truth in Gretchen Rubin's Happiness Project, which she describes in detail in her book, The Happiness Project. When Gretchen arrives at the realization of her Second Splendid Truth, she sees the circle of help, and the circle of happiness. Help others, and others will help you. Make someone else happy, and you will be happy.
Many of us have found ourselves in need of help. Learning that we don't have to do it alone and finding the courage to ask for help can be paramount to overcoming fear, adapting to change and achieving our goals. Allowing ourselves to seek guidance and mentorship from someone who has faced similar challenges, and beaten them, can mean the difference between staying where we are and getting to where we want to be. All of this is important to our lives and to our happiness. But it is just as important to help others; to be the guide and act as the mentor.
I've had the opportunity to use my experience to help others achieve their goals, and in doing so, I've come across some amazing people whose acts of kindness have made, and continue to make, powerful impacts on people's lives. Two such people are Rick, a fellow ultrarunner, and Jerry, who leads a group that helps others achieve their career goals.
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Rick often acts a pacer, someone who joins a runner during the last 40 miles of an ultra marathon and guides them through the rest of the race. Pacers are there to help navigate the trail when a runner is losing focus and falling asleep, remind them to eat and drink when they are struggling with hallucinations and forgetting to tend to basic needs that could make or break a race. Once, when Rick was pacing for a runner, the runner became blind during the race. I recently experienced something similar during my last ultra—it was terrifying. Imagine being in the middle of 100 miles of mountain trails and realizing that you can't see where you are going. Even with this debilitating condition, Rick succeeded in guiding his runner over 40 miles of trails to the finish. After the race, the runner said that he never would have finished without Rick there to guide him and keep him going. Rick commented after the race, saying that "It was a privilege to have been there and lend my support. My own race finishes ride partly on the work of others, even the 100 milers where I ran without a pacer or crew—it is never a solo effort! It takes a village to support a runner." Read his entire story here.
Likewise, Jerry helps people complete a different kind of marathon, that of achieving their career goals. I have personally benefited from Jerry's guidance, turning to his group every weekend for help, advice and support. A meeting with Jerry and his group leaves me feeling recharged and reminds me that being kind and loving to others is part of the arsenal I should pack in life. I leave these weekly meetings with increased self esteem, an improved psychological cheap cialis for sale well-being, an action plan, and happiness. Jerry doesn't have to give up his Saturday mornings to help others; he could be spending that time with his family. But instead, he chooses to spend his time with a group of people, showing us how to make connections every day and how to help others on the way to achieving our career goals—a brilliant concept. He does this because it gives him happiness to share his expertise with those who can benefit from it.
Both Rick and Jerry show that incorporating Gretchen's Truth into our lives isn't difficult; finding the occasion to help someone is as easy as looking around us. In fact, Liberty Mutual even made a series of commercials about it. Recall the images of good deeds: a woman stopping a pizza delivery boy from crossing the street into oncoming traffic; a man retrieving a bill left inside a public dryer and handing it back to its owner; another man helping someone up after a fall on a rainy sidewalk. Each of these good deeds were witnessed by individuals who took what they'd seen and paid it forward. It's hard to get sentimental about an insurance company, but the message in their commercials was the same as Gretchen's: when we choose to be kind to others and lend a helping hand, the return is two-fold; we succeed in improving the lives of others, and in turn, we improve our own lives. It's simple really; seeing a good deed and helping others feels good, and it makes us happy. It can give us confidence, improve our mood, give us an extra buffer from life's stresses and make our hearts beat a little faster.
In The Happiness Project, Gretchen argues the relationship between good deeds and happiness, pointing out that "Studies show that happier people are more likely to help other people." She's not alone in her assessment. Similar studies are being conducted at The Center for the Study of the Individual and Society, a research center at the University of Minnesota. Here, Dr. Mark Snyder, along with his colleagues, is studying how and why people become actively involved in doing good for others and for society. Dr. Snyder believes that this behavior in people—small acts of kindness, acting as a mentor, guiding others toward their goals—is fundamental to a well-functioning society, and that it fosters trust, reciprocity and social connectedness. Helping each other gives us the ability to be better, stronger, people.
Rick and Jerry are just two examples of people doing good deeds and finding happiness in helping others. Their actions show us that the good deeds depicted in the Liberty Mutual commercials, and of which Gretchen Rubin and Dr. Snyder refer to, aren't just ideals; they already exist around us. Perhaps Dr. Snyder and his team will discover the answers to why people like Rick and Jerry, and so many others, choose to lend a helping hand to those in need, or why it makes us feel good to do so; for now, it's enough to know it makes us happy. So lend a hand to a fellow human being and see if it doesn't change the way you feel about yourself.
Book recommendations:
Love is the Killer App: Rick Sanders—a favorite of Jerry's
The Happiness Project: Gretchen Rubin
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