How I overcame self-directed altruism
Helping others to help me feel better
When I resented the fact that my kindness was not met with gratitude
When I was about 10, I was walking about with a grown up I really respected. We walked past a beggar, and it was a very sorry sight.
He had lost a limb, and he hadn’t washed. Perhaps for months. He was so thin that you could almost see the contours of his bones. His skin had gone all red. He was prostrate, imploring that a passerby would perhaps show mercy and give him money.
My imposing companion dropped down the banknote of the highest denomination in his purse. Equivalent to 15 USD.
That to me, as a child, was a lot of money. I recalled the money I had spent in the tuck shop and it would take me close to a year to have spent that amount.
The beggar visibly shook, mustered what strength remained of him to look up and uttered: “th…th…thank you, sir.”
The generous giver said to me, “when you give, you don’t give because that is your unneeded, spare change. You give the highest banknote you have in your wallet, because if it doesn’t hurt you a bit, that’s not giving.”
That was very admirable. My youthful spirit was elevated somewhat.
But then he added.
“Besides,”
I held my breath.
“If you help others, you feel really good, and nothing can replace that feeling”.
I nodded resignedly, still enthralled by the unexpected act of his generosity.
A problem with that quote
A few years later, close to my adulthood, what he said came back to haunt me.
I had tried to go out of my way to help my friends at school. I volunteered for stuff.
I tried to build up a reputation for that.
At times I would get angry when my efforts weren’t recognised. Or when others didn’t respond in gratitude.
“Didn’t you see how inconvenient that was?”
It was in moments like this, that I’d hear the phrase in my head again:
“If you help others, you feel really good, and nothing can replace that feeling”
This phrase didn’t sit right with me.
There was something deeply questionable about it, if not deeply problematic.
If you give something because it ultimate benefits you, does that count as giving?
Yes, you can give the highest denomination in your purse. You can even ignore the praise of other people but do that charitable act discreetly.
But if we’re doing it ultimately to satisfy our conscience or positive state of mind, does that count as charity?
Altruism
There are great benefits to altruistic acts.
In his book, writer Tim Keller cites a 2015 article in The New York Times.
The article’s author recounted how he had earned great wealth in his mid-30s, but that didn’t give him a sense of value. Yet we humans seek values above all else, once our more basic needs are met.
At the end of the article he says:
“We feel best about ourselves when we stop focusing obsessively on filling our own sense of deficit. Making others feel more valued makes us feel more valuable.”
Keller comments that there is something awry about this:
“But many have pointed out the problems that result when people turn to benevolence and social activism as a way to find more fulfillment for themselves. This approach is ultimately, and ironically, extremely selfish. Your supposed generosity is really just building yourself up.”
I think this sums up well what my teenage brain couldn’t put into words.
A take on this by a 17th century writer
I found another example from a different time.
It was back in a time when western society was more religious.
The author was Jonathan Edwards, who extensively recorded the happenings in the first Great Awakening in the mid-18th century US. He observed that many people had this approach to their faith:
“And because the joy of [outwardly religious people] is in themselves, hence it comes to pass that in their rejoicings and elevations, they are wont to keep their eye upon themselves:
having received what they call spiritual discoveries or experience, their minds are taken up about them, admiring their own experiences; and what they are principally taken and elevated with, is not the glory of God."
He continues:
“They keep thinking with themselves, What a good experience is this! What a great discovery is this!
Edwards is saying, there are outwardly religious people who ultimately focus on their own feelings. They would go to lengths about their heightened experiences and understanding. But this is ultimately serving themselves, and not their object of worship — God.
I find this very ironic. Instead of serving the divine, who is outside of themselves, they serve themselves.
But I found myself thinking, then:
- If I’m not generous, that’s not a good thing.
- If I’m generous, I’m motivated by myself.
What should I do?
Augustine’s Solution
Augustine was a 4th century writer.
Before becoming a monk he found himself to be attached to many different things in life.
His realisation was that the things he sought to do weren’t in themselves bad, but what was missing was that he loved God too little.
That’s why his vision was often limited to himself.
I didn’t originally come from a religious background, but this resonated with me.
- I feel naturally wired to look to myself always.
- Even when I looked outwards, that was still about me, like how I expected repayment in gratitude when I did good.
- In my best moment, when I love someone ‘sacrificially’, I end up loving them too much and becoming attached to them. But such attachment can often lead to envy and great anxiety. I want them to make much of me.
I end up centering on myself, no matter where I start.
Augustine’s solution, summarised by Keller, was:
“not to love things in life less, but to love God more.”
Solution Towards Self-directed Altruism
Keller offers a solution towards (what I call) self-directed altruism, doing good while thinking about oneself:
“Here, then, is the message. Don’t love anything less; instead learn to love God more, and you will love other things with far more satisfaction.”
However, he caveats:
“You [can’t] just say, “From now on I will love God.” Love cannot be generated simply by an act of the will. Children learn to speak only by responding to speech and learn to love only by reciprocating love.
So we cannot love God just by thinking of an abstract deity who is loving in general. We must grasp and be gripped by the true story of God’s actual sacrificial, saving love”
In explaining the sacrifice, he mentions the picture of the bread of life that Christ gives. When he taught people to pray, ‘give us our daily bread’, not only is that physical bread. He also referred to the spiritual bread that people need.
He used bread to signify his body. He broke bread in the Last Supper, saying that it is his body, broken for his disciples.
That of course, ultimately refers to the cross, on which he died and gave his life for people.
Not only does he offer spiritual ‘bread’ to people so that they can be generous, but it also shows that people ultimately are not generous. Towards this point, Keller again:
“Now, if there is a God who created us and keeps us alive every minute, then the love we owe God would be infinitely greater. To not love him supremely would be infinitely worse.”
So the cross of Christ is also where he forgave people for looking to themselves and not to God.
Reflection
This is perhaps the best solution I’ve found towards self-directed altruism. I had found no resource which could ultimately help me not credit myself in any altruistic act.
Even out of the best intentions, I end up at myself. Even in loving other people, I become concerned whether they would like me back. In giving, I was concerned whether I would be paid back, if not in cash then in recognition.
But knowing God transforms my motives and gives me a new perspective on charity.
Tim Keller
Keller was a writer and pastor based in New York. He was a pastor in a blue collar area in Virginia for 9 years, where he learnt to speak simply and clearly.
He then went on to live and work in Manhattan, where he had written a series of books exploring the relationship between faith and culture.
He battled with cancer all of his life, until he succumbed to it last year. I find his writing to be tempered by a gentleness, which perhaps came from this battle.
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