That is kind of the point. Doing something for no extrinsic reward. It is a part of practicing gratitude and expecting nothing in return (from the other person). If you experience genuine joy or happiness from helping others I think you are doing alright :)
I helped because I could and I wanted to. It makes me happy to help other people. Happy is a loaded word anyway. What is happiness? Some bits of chemicals in our brain? I have trained my reward function to be happy for something it gets no real material or survival benefit from. Maybe it thinks it is getting some benefit in my default mode network. I help people and they will help me? I am sure the DMN sets forth that narrative at some level. But there is a deeper trick to all of it in which I know there is often no survival or conscious narrative benefit. I just did a pro social human thing. Maybe the hormones that generates are enough to convince my DMN to keep doing it? Maybe if you wire your empathy centers deeply enough to experience things through other people you can convince your DMN it is valuable. IDK how it works, I do meditate on it. But mostly it is just about connection and helping people on their journey through life as countless others have helped me. I figure if I end it with having helped others more than I was helped that's a pretty good score. Sort of like the seinfeld quote about driving a porsche: Having the lowest mileage Porsche when reaching heaven signifies a failure to enjoy life, which is considered one of life's greatest sins?
something like that maybe? Who knows. I am going to keep putting help others mileage out there until my time is up, I am very fortunate in this life.
I helped because I could and I wanted to. It makes me happy to help other people. Happy is a loaded word anyway. What is happiness? Some bits of chemicals in our brain? I have trained my reward function to be happy for something it gets no real material or survival benefit from. Maybe it thinks it is getting some benefit in my default mode network. I help people and they will help me? I am sure the DMN sets forth that narrative at some level. But there is a deeper trick to all of it in which I know there is often no survival or conscious narrative benefit. I just did a pro social human thing. Maybe the hormones that generates are enough to convince my DMN to keep doing it? Maybe if you wire your empathy centers deeply enough to experience things through other people you can convince your DMN it is valuable. IDK how it works, I do meditate on it. But mostly it is just about connection and helping people on their journey through life as countless others have helped me. I figure if I end it with having helped others more than I was helped that's a pretty good score. Sort of like the seinfeld quote about driving a porsche: Having the lowest mileage Porsche when reaching heaven signifies a failure to enjoy life, which is considered one of life's greatest sins?
something like that maybe? Who knows. I am going to keep putting help others mileage out there until my time is up, I am very fortunate in this life.