The selfishness of helping others (Part 1 of 2)

Almost everybody is a drug addict.  This probably includes you.

It starts from the moment you’re born; the mother’s touch, the smile, the oxytocin.  It moves on to learning to do things for yourself; like walking, controlling your bodily functions, and your ultimate achievements are rewarded with dopamine.  This extends to making sure you don’t hurt yourself or feel pain; like after touching something hot or doing a dangerous (but thrilling) activity. You are stoned by your body’s release of endorphins.

(Please understand i’m simplifying this immensely as I’m mindful of the dreaded TL:DR monster)

It’s a strange relationship.  Your brain is both the dealer and the junkie.  This means since birth, you are constantly breaking the first rule of dealing drugs, and getting high off your own supply.  You know very well that if you do a certain action, you will be rewarded with a certain feeling. In this case your feeling is the result of the drug your brain just released into your body.  Which makes you both a drug dealer and a junkie, and you are your only customer. It’s not the cocaine, meth, shopping, social media and gambling that you’re addicted to. It’s the dopamine release.

So what’s this have to do with the title of this digression?

Think about it.  One of the most intense releases of endorphins comes as a result of simply being kind and doing kind deeds to others.  Psychologists call this the ‘helper’s high’.

That’s right, every kind deed you have done for someone was motivated by your junkie tendency of wanting another hit of the good stuff.  It’s extremely addictive and some people get hooked on constantly wanting to help others; looking for ways they can be involved in a helpful act, which needs to increase in helpfulness each instance in order for the endorphin hit to feel as good as the last time.  This can continue until all the junkie can do is to wander around aimlessly looking to help others for no apparent reason.

This is where the saying ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’ takes hold, because the helpful junkie is not actually looking to do what’s right, nor do they think about the repercussions of their helpfulness.  They just wanna help out for the sake of helping out, and..you know..get their next hit.

All this comes to a conclusion, which in this case is a question; keeping in mind icons like Gandhi, Mother Teresa and the like.  Does this mean the most helpful and seemingly selfless people are in fact the most selfish drug addicts on the planet?

I sure hope so.  It’s for this reason that Axioms & Digressions has a dedication page.  I wonder if this makes me a drug dealer…hmmm