帮助别人，帮助自己
前些天有个很有激情的朋友向我打听为什么自己一心为别人好却总是好心没好报。劝了他几句，也不知劝没劝到点子上。看他最近心情不错，真为他高兴。忽 而又想起，我们劝人从”善”或变得更聪明，实际上是对我们自己有”好处”的—-别人都”善”了，我们就”安全”了些；别人都聪明了，我们就省劲一些；别人 的事该帮的都帮了，我们也就踏实了。诸如此类。
想想就释然了：我们”帮助”别人,也多是出于我们自己的考虑。比如，至少你认为“帮助别人”按你的“标准”来衡量是件好事，但被帮助的人未必也认 同。经常帮错了忙的例子比比皆是，说明了这个问题。因此，即然允许我们自己有如此的”私心”，就的允许别人”自私地”不接受“帮助”，甚至不理我们。也许 他们早就看出我们的私心了。
因此，”劝”人者必心甘寂寞。非此，就别去劝；为别人好者，能听任别人”不好”下去，关你何事？帮助别人，别图回报，我是说连接受都别图。
如果你实际上是为了自己，不妨告诉别人你的真实想法，比如：求求你变好一点，否则我心不安。或干脆就直说了，我为你好其实是为我好，如此如此。这样，效果往往好些，对彼此而言。
最后，受徐梵澄的启发，送一句话：帮助别人，实际上是帮助自己。
从动机和结果理解这话都可以。
Thanks for the enlightening piece. I have had some communication problem with a beloved one in my life. I think I need to rethink my way and hopefully make some change based on the last sentence of your blog, hehe.
-- gu March 21st, 2006 20:18Your writing reminds me something I have been thinking about. The society always encourages activities and attitudes that benefit others. I personally feel that the existence of moral actually reflects people’s selfhood.
-- Ye March 24th, 2006 14:42The blog and the comments are both on the point and I just want to share another perspective to this topic.
It may sounds very religious but I believe the attitude to help others should be indifferent to one’s self. It is beyond the general selfless. It is more of the pursuit of de-self or de-ego. I hope the word still makes sense. When we really care nothing about ourselves (it is hardly achievable in real life), our help to others are true and sincere, and we don’t care about their response to us, yes, because we are theoretically supposed to care zero about ourselves.
There is one example on the human history, 2007 years ago to be more precise, and before that time point, we call it B.C. ie Before Christ. Jesus Christ is the one and the only one who reached this level, according to the Bible which I truly believe. He came to this world to be a humble man, down from the glorious heaven, and experienced every possible insult and bitterness, and finally died in the most shameful way on the cross, all for other people’s sin (including us). He basically gave up everything of His, his glory as son of God, and his human life, for the people, again including us. So, he raised up from the dead in 3 days and he got the eternal glory and the most highly admired crown and has been sitting at the right hand of God ever since, till the day he comes back again to judge this world.
Whenever we still are somehow self-centric, we will have conflicts with others, because they are just as self-centric as we are, and the resources on this world are NOT indefinite. No matter whether we are trying to give or to take, we are essentially taking, even sometime in the name of “help”. So the true peace can only be achieved through de-ego, in another word, quiting the self-centric and following Jesus.
Yingkai
-- Yingkai October 9th, 2007 18:54