Empowered Selfless Giving

In a book a recently read, two sets of parents attempt to help their child.

"(The first set of) parents were told that their son was deficient in writing and related verbal skills. How did the parents respond to this problem? First, they transferred their child to another school. The verbal deficiency problem failed to improve, however, so the father began writing his son's papers. He still writes his son's papers today. His son is a junior in college."

"(The second set of) parents recognized that their son had an extremely high aptitude in mathematics but that his verbal skills were poor. His dad attacked the problem. Each night during dinner, Dad would ask his on to define three words taken from the SAT study guide. During hundreds of dinner sessions, Dad tutored his son. He also hired a professional tutor for him. The combination worked. Today his son is a graduate of a top Ivy League school--the one with the highest entrance requirements."

In both cases the parents put in a lot of effort and were willing to selflessly serve their children. While one solved the problem the other covered it up. As we seek to selflessly serve others we should look for opportunities to help individuals solve problems rather than postponing them. As with the first set of parents we risk doing a lot of work, making the recipient feel good, but leaving the underlying problem to be solved. We should always act like the second set of parents, still putting in hard work, still making the recipient feel good, but also solving the problem so the recipient will no longer need help in the future. We should ask ourselves, are we making the recipient more independent or dependent? For if we help to make others independent, we are truly helping.