Ariel Weinstein / Contributing Writer
opinion@fiusm.com
It is a natural human reaction to want to help someone in need. There is however, an idea that “help” can come in various forms.
The actual word “help,” in my opinion, means completing a task for someone who you believe cannot complete that task on their own. This may mean carrying in groceries for a grandmother, doing someone’s homework for them instead of showing them how to do it or engaging in any task with another person you feel they cannot do on their own.
Your first instinct would be to help them to be nice, but what if helping that person does more harm than good? From personal experience, sometimes the person being helped feels a sense of worthlessness, when that is not in anyway your intention.
Issues with helping also arise on an economic level as well. Some people who could really use the extra money someone is willing to offer them, see this act of kindness as being thought of as poor and weak, even though that is essentially the case. Pride is a very strong aspect of life, and when we have the best intentions, sometimes the people we are trying to help feel their pride is being stripped away.
Some people also just want to prove to themselves that they have it in them to do whatever task they are doing, on their own.
Another term that correlates to helping someone, is fixing.
I interpret fixing as seeing there is a problem, and wanting to be the one to make it better; to fix it. An example would be a tutor. Tutors fix issues in the understanding of concepts in various subjects.
Another example is a relationship therapist. People go to therapists because something is “broken” in their relationship, and they want an outside person to try to teach them how to fix it.
I worked at an animal shelter throughout my sophomore year of high school. Every day I worked there was completely voluntary. I feel that my experience in working at the animal shelter was not me helping animals, but me serving animals.
I think there is a difference between helping and serving, because serving does not always have to be assisting with a task, or carrying in groceries. In terms of the shelter, serving meant walking, playing, and just loving the animals who lived there.
Serving can be more than just a physical idea like help. Serving is more of a mental and emotional way of assisting others. I think out of all the forms of helping, serving is the most influential and beneficial to not only others, but ourselves as well.
I am not saying to walk past an elderly person and let them rake their own leaves, or drive past them when they are clearly in need of assistance in any way. I just believe that there are many types of ways in which we can assist people.
We just need to think about the assistance we are wanting to provide, to make the situation for the person we want to help better, yet allow them to keep their pride in the process.
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