Pay Back & Pay Forward: The Art of Showing Gratitude
The beauty of human existence is that at some point in our life, we get help from our fellow human beings. No one in this world can say that he or she has progressed in life with entirely his or her own efforts. This tendency of helping each other is what makes us human. However, this act of helping fellow human beings has many shades. In this article, we’ll talk about two of the main reasons why human beings help each other — Pay Back and Pay Forward. The two are quite similar, yet they are very different.
Paying Back
Pay back is returning a favor to someone for the good deed he or she did to us in past. Is it all give and take? No, if it would have been then people would sense the lack of genuine intention, so let’s call it gratitude. This kind of act stems from a deep sense of gratitude. Along with that when a person helps us, we tend to consider him or her as someone who is quite nearer to us. He or she seems like a part of our family. So, returning the favor does not seem like helping someone else — it feels as if we are helping our family itself.
Paying Forward
Pay forward stems from a deep philosophical sense of philanthropy. When you see the personal experience of being helped by someone as a universal experience of being helped by a fellow human being — that’s when the sense of paying forward takes birth. It’s not necessary that you need to return the favor to the same person who helped you. You see the help from a universal perspective and want to return the favor by helping someone else in the society. This also works when you don’t have somebody specific behind your success, so instead of turning back to repay, you actually move forward and pick up someone in need and pay forward.
In The Professional World
In the professional world too, the art of paying back and paying forward is quite visible. If you joined a company as fresh graduate without any work experience, you feel humbled and grateful for the opportunity. You work hard and do the job well, doing that you pay back to your organization which had given you a chance. You work hard and move up the ladder in the industry in few years, and taking the chance and you in turn give new fresh graduates similar opportunity in your organization, that’s pay forward.
Paying Back Vs Paying Forward
You might be judging that paying forward requires much more maturity and sacrifice. However, both of these are equally important. They have their own roles to play.
The Paradox
Both ‘paying back’ and ‘paying forward’ imply that one needs to be helped in the first place. Only after that will they return that favor. This places us in a kind of chicken and egg paradox. If people did not help each other in the ancient days, then how did the act of repaying start?! This paradox actually points to a positive thing. There are people in society who would help people regardless of whether they got help in the first place. That’s why I said in the beginning that there are many shades of helping each other.
Irrespective of the reason behind the repaying — back or forward — every time a human being helps another human being, we move one step closer to the ideal of true love and true spirituality. Long live humanity!
Thank you for reading the article. I’m Manoj Agrawal, a tech evangelist with an unputdownable interest in human to human interaction. Currently I’m working as the Chief Delivery Officer at Techment Technology. See you around!
