April 15-21, 2018 could be one of the most important weeks for you this year. The “Points of Light” organization has designated this week as National Volunteer Week. Did you know that volunteer work, altruism, has benefits both for the giver and the recipient? A growing body of research is indicating that appropriate emotional compassion and active benefit provided for others increases the well-being of both the recipient and the donor. These benefits for the caregiver often include greater mental health, increased longevity, more optimal physiological functioning, deeper social engagements, and even better outcomes when facing a number of illnesses and diseases. As part of your own general self-care while a student at UAMS, you might consider getting involved in meaningful volunteer work, altruism, along the way.
Those who have been studying the value of altruism have emphasized a few pointers:
First, the benefits accrue to the giver whose compassion does not overwhelm her or him. Of course there is a danger in caring too much for the other at the expense of one’s own needs, and such an approach is detrimental to health.
Second, the caregiver needs both to care emotively and to act in some beneficial way toward those cared about. To feel concern is appropriate; to act beneficially is helpful; best is the combination of the two. Also, it is better to engage in face-to-face caregiving, yet the donation of goods or money is also useful.
Third, the donation, be it goods or services or financial support, should be something that is recognized as a benefit by the recipient.
Stephen Post, who has tracked relevant research on this topic, summarizes “It’s Good to Be Good.”
Who knew? Doing good for others is good for me. Altruism benefits also the altruist.
As Martin Buber famously taught, the human experience is most fully human when I value both “I” and “Thou.” To practice genuine care for someone other than myself is also, at its best, to take care of myself. And remember some of those others may very well be Pinnacle Mountain, humpback whales, or abandoned pets. There is benefit also in doing good to the nonhuman members of our planet.
My inclination is to tell you to go, be good, but it seems ludicrous to command volunteerism. Consider spoiling yourself, then, by your altruism: caring for and doing good.