What do we typically do with people who need our help? Let‘s make a small table of the common options chosen in different countries / cultures:
| # | Action | Justification | Belief System |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ignore them | Their condition is their own fault | Liberalism |
| 2 | It's okay | It must be Gods will | Various religions |
| 3 | Stow them away in asylums | „There is no alternative (no time, no money etc.)“ | Various |
| 4 | Force others to take care of them | It‘s easier for the others, because they are richer than me | Communism, social market economy |
| 5 | Kill them | They are worthless | Fascism |
These measures are often implemented by societies in combinations. In many countries some of these options are considered immoral, but cultures disagree on which ones. Swiss people, for instance prefer 3 and 4 while Indians lean more towards 1 and 2. Swiss people look with indignation at the poor in the streets of Delhi while Indians are disgusted how heartlessly Swiss people discard their parents in asylums for old people.
But if we are honest, all these options actually feel (at least) a bit weird. Why all these huge efforts just to avoid helping others? It seems that most people have a very strong aversion against helping strangers in need. But is this really true?
We know that some time ago people lived in small tribes and that extensive cooperation was required to survive. How did these ancient societies work if their members were so extremely reluctant to help each other? It is much more likely that these people experienced helping as a pleasurable activity.
The solution for this conundrum lies in a recent invention: money! Since its invention, helping means giving money. And the problem with it is: giving money does not satisfy our desire to help, it only depletes our resources. This is how we managed to turn one of our most favorite and pleasant activities into a annoying duty. But why exactly is this so?
- If you give somebody money, it is completely unclear to what extent the donation required a sacrifice from you. The receiver normally assumes that you just have lots (or even too much) of it and that the donation was therefore easy for you.
- The receiver might think that it is not really a donation because it is unfair that you have more money than him. That the money donated should be his anyways.
- It takes only seconds to transfer money from one person to another. The resulting very short social contact makes it unsatisfying too.
Therefore money is a lousy gift. The same is true for anything that can be bought with money. So money, bought goods and services bought from other people are all lousy gifts.
But what then can be a good gift?
There is in fact only one suitable „thing“: your time:
- It is strictly limited and therefore precious
- Everybody has approximately the same amount of it (of course some people die earlier than others, but at the moment of the donation they don‘t know when they will die)
- Time therefore has a clearly defined and indisputable value and is fairly distributed in the population
This is why every way to give somebody your time is great fun: cooking for others, teaching or any other way of helping directly with your hands or your mind (including your knowledge).
From this insight, we can infer some simple rules:
Don’t:
- Never help anybody with money
- Also never donate money to a charity.
- More general: never delegate helping to professionals (helping is fun and not a job!)
- Never give alms on the street
All these activities only drain your resources without giving you any satisfaction. You rather work less to have more time which you can use to make really pleasant (also for you!) and helpful time based gifts to others. Donations made from money or goods also tend to entrench a dependency of the receiver to you (the donor). They often do more damage than good. It's 100x better to teach a poor man how to fish than to give him a fish.
But do instead:
- Listen to those in need carefully to understand what they really need (without making them dependent of you).
- Use your time to teach others how to stand on their own legs. Gift your knowledge.
- Simply do something nice for them. This can be cooking and inviting for lunch or creating/making something beautiful for them.
- Better focus on a handful of people instead of giving a penny to hundreds. This makes sure you will see the effect of your efforts. Consequently helping will be satisfying again.
- People also sometimes just need someone who listens to them. Or some honest opinion or a piece of advice.
I believe that we could - by following these rules - reclaim an important source of pleasure lost a few thousand years ago. Yes: if done right, giving is fun, not a chore! And this is hugely important: because donating money is so frustrating, we usually donate only very little. We donate pennies mainly to brag in our social circle what good people we are. Or to calm our bad conscience a little bit (this - we all know - works only very poorly).
But just imagine what could happen to the planet if people had great fun from helping each other. And this is, I‘m quite sure, absolutely in reach.
But then, what can you do with your money? You can use it as a resource for your helping activities. For instance you could buy food to cook for others. But never forget that the the core of your gift should be your time.
And what if you want to help somebody far away (i.e. you read in the newspaper about people suffering in another country?). I think we need to be patient: if many people follow the rules stated above, help slowly diffuses to these places. People empowered by you will later help other people in the same way and this process transports the prosperity each time by some small distance.
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