The simple fact is that helping others makes us feel good. People volunteer for many different reasons, but there are usually multiple motivators. When volunteering for the first time, the motivation is often extrinsic, existing outside of the individual. But external motivation like the desire to give back is not deep rooted in our personality and as volunteers continue, they discover their intrinsic motivations and they become personally invested. As they reach out to others, they discover things about themselves and they get a lot out of it, motivating them to continue.
Sympathy, empathy and compassion are important factors in mentoring, but it is important to distinguish between them. Sympathy is feeling sorry for another's hurt or pain with some emotional distance, while empathy is he ability to experience for yourself the pain that the other person is feeling, tuning in to another person's emotional experience. One downside to this though is when distressing emotions can be overwhelming, as similar areas of the brain are activated in both the person who suffers and the one who feels empathy. We witness suffering on a daily basis, whether it's on the street, we read about it on the newspaper, or we see it on TV and in movies. Compassion is more involved than empathy, which commonly gives rise to an active desire to alleviate another's suffering. While many of us easily get emotional watching sad movies or offer help to those in need, it's often difficult to extend compassion to ourselves. It's easy to criticise and judge ourselves and we learn to put others first, but being kind to ourselves allows us to reduce our own suffering, become stronger and offer authentic compassion to others.
Giving to others is a source of contentment and satisfaction. Last week I added some spare change to a charity collection tin and was given a sticker - with a smiley face on it!
"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion, if you want to be happy, practice compassion" Dalai Lama
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