Are philanthropic endeavors narcissistic? Selfless? Do the motivations even matter?
When I pose these questions, I immediately think about the South African family who hosted my husband’s stay in the Peace Corps. His family did not have much, but they shared their food, and even their dinner table, with anybody from the village who needed a meal. They did not think of their actions as selfless, because they adhere to “ubuntu,” a term that means “I am a person through other people.” In essence, philanthropic acts are not external, because we should see others as extensions of ourselves.
Ask people who have given time or money about their experiences, and they almost always note the ways in which their experiences helping others made them, in turn, more fulfilled.
Dr. Lisa Nastasi, a DivineCaroline columnist who co-developed the Mindfulness Program at New York Presbyterian Hospital, quotes the Jesuit priest Teilhard de Chardin in a book she is writing on happiness: “We are all co-creating the universe. What you and I are becoming, the world is becoming.”
In essence, says Nastasi, if you are aware of your own inner happiness, basic goodness, and brilliance, you will positively affect others. Indeed, you will be helping both yourself and others to create meaningfully happy lives.
“Psychologists might call this optimism, an upward spiral, high functioning, or subjective well-being. They might even call it happiness,” she writes in an email interview. “However you phrase it, this is the only kind of success that really matters.”
And a significant percentage of Americans seem to get this. Estimates place the number of United States nonprofits at between 1.4 and 1.6 million, and according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, about 61.2 million people—more than 26 percent of the population above the age of sixteen—volunteered through or for an organization from September 2005–2006. This was a slight drop from previous years, but it is a decent slice of the country; a populace often maligned as selfish and insulated.
U.S. Senator Elizabeth Dole, who used to head the Red Cross, once said of volunteerism in America: “The idea of giving to others is ingrained in our nature, taught by our parents, who were taught by theirs.”
