The Checkpoint
💙 I help people navigate life in a much more conscious way. If you feel like life is a never-stopping race, this is the place you need.
• By Daniel Robledo👨👩👧👦 Why I Started Volunteering (And Why You Should Too)read time: 04 minutes Welcome back to The Checkpoint, a newsletter where, every Monday, we pause, reflect, and level up our lives. ☑️ Today's Summary:
💗 The Altruism ConundrumHey Reader! A couple of months ago, I read a fantastic book called What We Owe the Future, and it completely blew my mind—it’s one of those red pill books. In a nutshell, MacAskill’s spiel on the topic is that we humans are biologically programmed to care for others. So far, so good. But the mind-blowing aspect for me was that when he says “others,” he’s not just referring to your family, friends, and loved ones… he’s referring to the entire human species.
According to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB), the human species has produced about 117 BILLION little helpless babies so far. This means that we can expect the same rate (or even more, I’d argue) of births in the years to come. In his book, MacAskill argues that those future human beings should be part of your circle of care. Meaning: you shouldn’t just care for your close loved ones, nor only for those far away in other countries, but also for those far away in time. This idea is also backed by science—humans are the only animal species that place burdens on future generations. When a family of monkeys is expecting a new baby monkey, the parents collect more food than they need so the newborn has something to eat. But humans? We expect future generations to care for the old ones, pay taxes so they can earn a salary without working, and even give them more respect (which I think is pretty toxic, but let’s not dwell on that).
At first, I was a little skeptical about all of this: “Why am I supposed to care about all these people? Who cares about me? Uh?” This sounded like expecting too much. Plus, shouldn’t contribution come from a place of disinterest? I thought I should want to care for its own sake, not because some random guy told me to in a book. But my opinion changed… after watching an episode of Friends. Long story short, in this episode, Joey tells Phoebe that good deeds don’t exist—that anyone who “does a good thing” is doing it to get something in return, even if that something is just feeling good about themselves. After some struggle, Phoebe realizes it’s true. Even she does good things only if they make her feel good too. But here’s the catch: I think that’s okay.
We humans are wired around a reward-punishment system:
And since we are social creatures who need each other to thrive, helping other humans actually increases our chances of survival. That’s why “good deeds” don’t exist—because you cannot do something nice for someone without feeling good yourself. So, coming back to the clickbaity subject of this email… I started volunteering because of this realization: I don’t need to be 100% altruistic to help others. This used to be a huge mental blocker for me. But now, I can proudly say that a big motivator for me doing volunteer work is simply that it makes me feel good about myself. If you’re curious, I volunteer once a week at a childcare center that helps children from difficult family backgrounds. It’s pretty demanding, but so rewarding. I’ll talk more about why I chose this specific activity in another newsletter—this one’s already too long (I’m sorry!). ✍️ Week's Quote❤️ Favorites Of The Week👀 I'm Pivoting My CareerThank you for being here every week, Reader.Talk to you soon <3 |
The Checkpoint
💙 I help people navigate life in a much more conscious way. If you feel like life is a never-stopping race, this is the place you need.