If you really want to change lives – if you really want to help more people – then start with the person next to you.
Why You Haven’t Actually Helped Anyone
On my 36th birthday – February 16th – while scheduling social media posts for the day, I took some of the space that I usually reserve for promoting my own stuff to ask for donations to my favorite charities (which you can find here). As I was doing so, I thought about how I could help more people through these charities if I was just a little more well-known. Like if I’d already had some major success with my music, my writing or my websites.
Or if I could juggle fire! Not something lit on fire, but actual fire. All by itself.
After all, the more notoriety you have, the more easily you are heard and the more value your word carries.
I bet sometimes you’ve had similar thoughts, like:
“If only I was making a little more money – then I could donate to charities and help a lot of people!”
“I wish I had more time – then I could volunteer at the homeless shelter and feed a lot of hungry folks!”
“If only I had more influence – then I could be the voice of an entire group of people who are in need!”
“I wish these jeans fit. It’s not relevant to the topic at hand, but it’s a concern nonetheless.”
You feel defeated, though, don’t you? You feel like you’re not getting the job done because you haven’t been able to get yourself to a place where you can do all of those things. As a result, you haven’t been able to help more people, let alone all those you feel it’s your duty to help. And it weighs on you.
And the jeans.
The reality is that you feel defeated not because you haven’t helped all of those people, but because in focusing solely on trying to help as many people as you can —
— You’ve helped no one.
And this is, I believe, one of the major problems our society has today. It’s not that we don’t have big enough hearts – it’s that our hearts are too damn big. We spend so much time focusing on the big picture that we completely gloss over everything else – as if there isn’t anyone to help or anything to accomplish if we haven’t done that big thing, or made millions of lives better.
You can’t help more people if you aren’t helping anyone.
We say “feed the poor”, and “clothe the homeless”, and “help the needy”, but we don’t actually feed a poor person, or clothe a homeless man or help a person in need.
Those are small potatoes. So we don’t bother.
Start With The Person Next To You
But could you imagine what would happen if each one of us bothered with just one of those individuals? Could you even fathom how many lives would be changed? And sure, that sounds all well and good but I know you’re already thinking to yourself “well… that only matters if everyone else does that, too”! But there you go again – thinking only of the big picture, thereby immobilizing yourself from doing anything.
It’s a wonderful thing to want to help as many people as possible – but not at the cost of helping no one at all.
If you really want to change lives – if you really want to help more people – then start with the person next to you.
Do that, and you’ve already accomplished something wonderful.
I’ve always been a firm believer that you can’t truly help anyone else until you’ve helped yourself. Or, in other words, you can’t really help more people if you yourself aren’t in a position where you can actually do that. After all, it doesn’t make sense to put yourself or your family in a position where you can’t pay your bills or can’t otherwise keep helping.
I do still firmly believe that, but I’ve also come to the conclusion that while you may not be in a place to help millions of people, you are most certainly in a place where you can help one person. I would even go so far as to argue that you can help one person more completely than you can help one individual within a million, regardless of the amount of money, influence or power you have.
How many people you’re helping is not as important as actually helping. How many lives you’re changing is not as important as changing a life.
So while you should always keep working to that end goal of helping as many other people as you can, in the meantime, don’t forget about those small potatoes.
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What ways have you found to help more people by focusing on fewer? Do you feel that by focusing on those fewer people what you did was more impactful? How so? Share your experience below!
Portions of this article were published in Operation Joy: 30 Daily Missions To Inspire Joy In Yourself & Others.