Last week, I helped a man across the express road, while doing it, it seemed like something normal, it wasn't something deep, or something serious, just something that felt natural. After I left, however, I realized, by helping that man across the road, I also crossed, which I wasn't intending to do at the time, but the thought about it remains in my heart longer than I thought it would be.
It made me think about what really helping people mean, usually when people think about helping others they think it's about doing things for someone else, not really thinking about how it can relate back to themselves. The truth is, you will never really help others without it affecting you at some level.
When you help someone up the mountain, you are just standing to the side watching them go up. You are part of that journey of climbing the mountain yourself, you are also walking that mountain, making your effort, you are also climbing the mountain regardless if your motivation for doing so was simply to assist them.
It is something I didn't really realize before because I use to think that helping other people was something separated from what you are doing with your life, that it was merely an act, something you do because it is correct and nothing more. I never really thought of it as anything that contributes to one's own welfare.
There were moments in my life that I didn't want to do anything for anyone else, times that I was dealing with my own issues and the things I was worried about. However, the fact remains that those were also times that if I made the choice to help someone even the simplest ways, something else happened to me that was totally unexpected.
It is like being pulled out of my own thoughts, even if for just a moment, to realize that I am still a functioning being, thinking and able to be effective person, which always changes how you see where you are.
You see, helping people isn't just about them and their problem, and how you alleviate it. It's also about you and what happens to you in the process, because you are building something within you gradually. something that you may not initially notice but which becomes apparent over time, when you can look back and analyze what actually happened to you.
It is a lessons in patience, awareness and in understanding that the world does not revolve around your own particular issues. And also, there is the element of karma in this kind of thing, that whatever you give out eventually returns. Not in the way you thought, not in the form you expected, not necessarily when you wanted it, but, in a meaningful way. This may come as help, or in the way of new opportunities, or perhaps the courage to push on.
When I look back at that event, I realize that in helping that man across the road, it was not just about getting him to the other side of that street, it was also about realizing that progress doesn't always come as large steps in leaps and bounds, but rather as subtle occurrences of goodness which you offer to other people, and as you help them advance so also do you.