At the end of August each year, I always get a burst of
energy from the success of Operation: Back Pack. I honestly cannot name any one specific thing
that is more gratifying to me than helping kids in need and I would struggle to
name anything more inspiring to me than the fact that we have been able to
build our school supply program to its current level almost entirely through
our patient base; so many of you travel far and wide from different communities
yet still find it within your hearts to help children in the Kernersville
community.
My personality is such that I tend to do a lot reflecting
and, via my studies of self since opening the Triad Upper Cervical Clinic seven
years ago, I have determined that at no point at any given time during the year
am I happier than right around Labor Day.
Some of that credit should go to the start of college football season,
as my wife would readily point out :-) , but a lot of the credit goes to the
back pack drive.
Napoleon Hill, vaunted author on personal success, would
call my post-Operation: Back Pack surge of enthusiasm the result of “going the
extra mile,” a basic principle stating that, whenever you volunteer your
energy, money, or time to helping others, it improves your life too. Hill provides an excellent example of this
principle in action in his book, The 17 Principles of Personal Achievement; a
young salesman working at a Philadelphia department store in the early 20th
century waited on a woman drenched from head to toe who told him she merely wanted
to escape the pouring rain and, instead of ignore her (she had no intention of
buying anything), he brought her a chair to sit in until she was ready to
leave. It turned out that the woman was
the mother of Andrew Carnegie; soon after, the young salesman became a high
ranking executive in the department store.
Hill, himself, when tasked by Carnegie with compiling the
common traits of the world’s most successful people, was not actually paid for
his work, but he had so much passion for the project and such a strong desire
to help people help themselves that, despite having a family to support, he
poured everything that he had into it.
He went the extra mile and it afforded him rewards later (and often);
and he was much happier in the long run.
Psychological studies have verified the extra
mile-happiness relationship, suggesting that the people most likely to describe
themselves as content in their lives volunteer in some form several hours per
month. By volunteering, they also
increase their overall sense of purpose and have a higher view of their
self-worth, especially when entering phases of their lives less defined by
parenting and/or their careers. The
effect of going the extra mile is not just a psycho-social phenomenon either,
but is also a harbinger for the release of hormones that offer physiologic
boosts. Doing good deeds, like giving
someone a hug, just makes you and other people feel better.
As happiness is a reflection of a positive mental
attitude, harkening back to attitude/constructive stress management skills
being one of the five basic tenets of healthy living, helping others therefore
also improves your health. People who go
out of their way to help others manage stress better and, consequently, have
lesser tendencies for depression, heart disease, cancer, and chronic pain. One particular study suggested a
statistically-significant 40% decrease in heart-related health problems as a
result of volunteering for 200 hours or more per year.
Going the extra mile does your body good. It also inspires others to follow your
lead. They say that “you are who you
hang out with,” so if you surround yourself with people who enjoy giving back
to their communities than you will, in turn, be more likely to do the same and
then your friends and your kids (who tend to perform better in school and
develop better self-images when they volunteer) will gravitate toward
altruistic acts as well.
Hill is prone to stating in his works that if you are
having some sort of problem, one of the best ways to solve it is to help
someone else solve their problem. Most
self-improvement authors and documentaries tend to point toward the Law of
Attraction, which has been heavily featured in many of my own newsletters over
the years. Another Law to be familiar with
that closely follows the ideology of Attraction (what you think about, you
bring about) is Compensation. The Law of
Compensation states simply that you get what you give. So, just as you would, in for example being
judgmental about other people and their intentions, be more likely to act like
a magnet for people who would in turn be judgmental of you (the Law of
Attraction in action), you would also, in for example by consistently going the
extra mile for your co-workers, community, family, or friends be more likely to
find them in turn go the extra mile for you (the effect of the Law of
Compensation).
Each day, when we pay attention, we are provided
opportunities to help others. I
encourage you to look for them and to remember that the old saying that “you
reap what you sow” can have a powerfully positive impact on your life and your
health. I thank you for being you and I
encourage all of us to collectively strive to inspire each other to be even
better.
Sources: Napoleon Hill (various works); National
Institutes of Health
Thinking good things for as always,
Dr. Chad
