Helping Yourself By Helping Others

I Believe that helping others helps yourself.

When I was growing up, my parents always taught me to help others. Sometimes they did this through suggestions, most of the time they showed me through their actions. One night, when I was about eleven years old, my father and I were driving home when we saw a man, who had two little children with him, in a parking lot was attempting to jack up his Buick. There used to be a sign in the middle of the parking lot that had a cement post, and the sign had been knocked down. The man had driven over the post and had gotten his car stuck on it.. While he was trying to get the car off, he had broken his jack. My dad and I spent about an hour trying to get this complete stranger’s car free. Eventually, the vehicle broke free, and we could all go home

My parents are why I am the way I am today. They are why, one day while at the supermarket, when an elderly man and his wife asked if I could read the phone number off the back of their AAA card, I found out what was wrong, and when they told me they had locked the keys in their car, I called AAA for them. After twenty minutes of waiting, I finally realized that it is a brand new Buick. Since Buick is a GM vehicle, it is equipped with OnStar. So, I called OnStar for them. OnStar was able to instantly unlock the vehicle. So, I canceled their AAA call, and walked them to their car to make sure that they were all set. When we got to the car, the man offered me twenty dollars, and of course I could not accept it.

The value of helping others is why I do a lot of volunteer work. I volunteer with WaterFire Providence. This volunteering has opened many opportunities for me. I was put in charge of a program at WaterFire. This gave me valuable leadership experience. This leadership experience, I believed, helped me to get two job offers. Also, I used to help tutor students at my high school who were doing poorly in their classes. Helping other students in our high school Calculus class allowed me to gain a better understanding of the subject and topics. I believe that my doing well in high school was a result of helping the other students. I also believe that my doing well in Calculus I, and now in Calculus II is directly related to my doing well in high school Calc.

I am not saying that you should do good deeds and help others just to help yourself. You should do good things because it is the right thing to do. It is sort of the principle of Karma – if you do good things, good things will happen to you. This is why I believe that helping others helps yourself.