How to help others

I want to help people. I want to make a difference. I suspect I am not so different from many of you. I bet you want to help people and you want to make a difference too.

We can help people physically with tasks and we can help people emotionally with guidance and listening. There is a great reward in helping others; It's a feeling of satisfaction. I'm not referring to agreeing with someone or pacifying them simply as part of an everyday conversation, but being honest with them and helping them identify means of coming to a solution.

We (my partner and I) had a young family member stay with us for a period. As part of this arrangement, we required that he pay rent. He had the first 4 weeks free and after that, he had to pay rent. Rent was $25 for the 5th week, $50 for the second and so on. Each week increased by $25 until he was at $175/week. The agreement was that anything over $100 would be set aside and used to get him into his own place. The first week when rent was due ($25), he said he didn't have it. I offered to pay him $25 to do some yard work. He declined. I told him that he would need to be out on Sunday and his response was "What? Really? You are going to make me sleep in my car?". I responded "No, I am not going to make you sleep in your car, you are making a decision where you have chosen not to accumulate $25 over the course of the past month and you have chosen not to do any yard work to earn money ... this is not my choice, but yours. You are choosing to sleep in your car". Ultimately, he came up with the money and continued to stay with us for a year.

This experience was good for me, it taught me patience and the importance of consistency. I hope he took away some positive behaviors (I think he did), and I hope he felt loved (because he is). I want more experiences like this. I want to be able to guide, where possible, other people to get onto a path where they find satisfaction and happiness.

I would love to hear how you help people, please leave some comments below on what you have done and continue to do to help other people.