Helping Others
Purpose
The purpose of my speech will be to bring awareness to the benefits of helping others.
Thesis
Helping others can create a better society both now and for future generations.
Introduction
Volunteering your time, money, or energy to assist others is crucial to make the world better and enhance the welfare of the individuals involved. Several studies indicate that helping others or giving back within the community not only enhances the welfare of those that are helped but also significantly improves the wellbeing of the individual involved. By helping others, one supports and facilitates the growth of society through several benefits. Helping others can create a better society for the existing and future generations.
Body
Main point 1 -Enhancement of Long-term Health
Borgonovi (2008) states that individuals that take part in helping others have their health considerably improved in ways that lengthen their lifespan. By helping others, individuals show an increased capability to take part in stress management, along with an increased sense of life satisfaction. This may be because helping others alleviates the loneliness of the helping individual and enhances the social life of the individual helped. In turn, the long-term health of different community members is enhanced.
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In his study, Post (2005) found that people are more likely to be generous and help others after observing others do the same. This chain of reaction of altruistic acts ensures that different members of society are able to benefit from the act of helping others. The existence or prevalence of illnesses and diseases can then be significantly decreased.
Main Point 2- Happiness and Helping
Post (2005) found that a strong association exists between happiness and helping others. By displaying acts of kindness towards others, individuals are more likely to be happier and better.
Helping others has also been found to increase one's happiness irrespective of their socioeconomic situation. Through their study, Aknin et al. (2010) found that people that provided or gave a proportion of their monthly income to charitable causes or used it to purchase gifts of others were found to be happy. These giving individuals were found to be happier than those that did not help others.
Main Point 3- Enhanced Cognitive Functioning
According to Kahana (2013), helping others has a strong association with better mental wellbeing. In the study of teenagers, helping others was associated with improved self-esteem and a reduction in the level of anti-social problems. These teenagers also had better scores and achievements within their educational area. A society made up of individuals with better mental wellbeing is a better society.
Krause (2016) views helping others as an intentional activity that individuals can engage in to enhance their cognitive functioning. Based on this, members of society can choose to view helping others as a way to enhance their psychological welfare while improving the state of others.
Conclusion
Review of points- Based on the available data, helping others is beneficial not only to the individuals being helped but also to the individual engaged in helping others. Helping others is identified as crucial for enhancing the long-term health of different members of society by enabling better management of one's health and reducing stress. Helping others is also associated with increasing the level of happiness of those involved as a result of the sense of fulfillment and purpose that results from the activity. Lastly, helping others improves the cognitive functioning of different individuals through factors such as enhancing self-esteem.
Closing Statement- We should all endeavor to be helpful to the person next to use as it is only through this that we can grow as a society.
References
Aknin, L. B., Biswas-Diener, R., Barrington-Leigh, C. P., Kemeza, I., Dunn, E. W., Nyende, P., ... & Norton, M. I. (2010). Prosocial spending and wellbeing: Cross-cultural evidence for a universal.
Borgonovi, F. (2008). Doing well by doing good. The relationship between formal volunteering and self-reported health and happiness. Social science & medicine , 66 (11), 2321-2334.
Kahana, E., Bhatta, T., Lovegreen, L. D., Kahana, B., & Midlarsky, E. (2013). Altruism, helping, and volunteering: Pathways to wellbeing in late life. Journal of aging and health , 25 (1), 159-187.
Krause, N. (2016). Providing emotional support to others, self-esteem, and self-rated health. Archives of Gerontology and Geriatrics , 65 , 183-191.
Post, S. G. (2005). Altruism, happiness, and health: It’s good to be good. International journal of behavioral medicine , 12 (2), 66-77.
