May 7Beautiful Compensation
It is one of the beautiful compensations of life that no one can sincerely try to help another without helping themself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson—Essays: First Series (1865)
Today's reading goes directly to the heart of things like service, sacrifice, and selflessness.
Emerson, like many of the transcendentalist thinkers, fully subscribed to the idea that all human beings were interconnected by a force of energy that flowed through acts of giving and receiving.
And so, in effect, this reading can include a practical, and potentially self-serving, bonus idea. Giving isn't always the act of charity it's made out to be—it's often done in a self-centered fit, albeit an enlightened one.
Random acts of kindness, a belief in service for the benefit of others, a dedication to helping those in need—all very good things for those on the receiving end—compensate the giver just as fully.
Committing to a focus on helping another is the ultimate accounting hack.
Challenge Question
- Who could you give a gift to today?
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