Finding Happiness Through Generosity

Join Dr Robert Puff in this insightful and informative podcast, where he explores the notion that generosity leads to happiness. Dr Puff references recent research findings as well as his own experience to assert that acts of selflessness and altruistic deeds enable a great deal of happiness for the indiviudal, while contribute to the betterment of society.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

I live in Southern California,

And one of the things that I love about here is that we don't have real harsh winters and we don't have real hot summers.

It tends to be pretty mild throughout the year.

We don't get a lot of rain,

It never snows here,

And the closer you get to the beach,

The milder the weather gets and the better the air quality is.

I think that's one of the reasons a lot of people move here,

And I think that's why a lot of people want to live here or come here on vacation.

It just truly is a beautiful place to visit or live.

But perhaps one of the negative things about Southern California is the cost of living.

It's very expensive to live here.

So what happens is we have people that move here or live here and really are trying their best to make a living,

But they can't do it and they end up living on the street.

They're homeless,

And we have a lot of homeless people in Southern California.

I think in part because they can live here year-round even though it's hard.

Now some of the people are on the street because they're addicted to drugs or alcohol.

They're having a hard time getting by and the addiction is really consuming their life,

And because of the addiction they can't work,

So they live on the street.

Others,

Though,

Are living like many of us paycheck for paycheck,

And they lose their job,

And then they're living in their car or perhaps on the street.

It can happen to so many people,

People that I've known,

That just got behind something happened,

An illness,

A loss of a job,

And very quickly,

Because I didn't have the support network,

They were living on the street.

Well,

One thing that I do,

And you may not agree with it,

But one thing that I do pretty regularly,

Not all the time,

But often,

Is when I see these people on the street and I can tell they're homeless or if they are asking me for money,

I often will give them money or food.

Again,

Not always,

But often.

For me,

I realize I'm no different than them.

I'm definitely not better than they are.

I'm just living a different life than they are,

And someday I may be living on the street too,

And if this were to happen,

I would be very grateful to other people helping me along my journey.

Now,

The one thing that has always surprised me about this,

To this very day,

Is that it doesn't happen all the time,

But I'd say 80% of the time when I give them money or I give them food,

They look me directly in the eye,

And with as much as love,

As compassion,

As I can imagine,

They thank me,

And it is truly from their heart.

I'm sometimes just blown away by it because they're so thankful,

Even though I've done such a little thing,

But they truly,

Truly are thankful,

And they let me know that,

And I feel at that moment I am far more blessed by them than they are by me,

Far more.

So why does generosity have such a positive impact on the people we give to and on the givers?

I first want to talk about a study that was done in 2017 and was entitled,

A Neural Link Between Generosity and Happiness,

In the journal,

Nature Communications.

It was a small study,

Only 50 people,

And these 50 people were divided into two groups.

One group was given an amount of money and they were told to spend it on themselves.

A second group of 25 was given an equal amount of money,

But they were told to give the money away,

And then what the researchers did is they monitored the brain,

The parts associated with generosity and happiness,

And the study found that those who gave the money away had far more activity in their brains in the areas associated with happiness and generosity,

And these results were consistent regardless of the amount of money given away.

I think if we're listening with our hearts right now and if we reflect on our lives,

This probably makes sense.

Given to others has a lot of positive karma to it.

It just makes us feel good when we can help others out.

Why is that,

Though?

What's going on inside of us that makes this work so well?

Why does generosity instill happiness in us?

Though there are many factors involved,

For me,

I think the big one is,

Is that as humans,

We're really not all that different.

We,

Like other people,

Can go through hard times,

We can go through good times,

It can really vary,

And the question of control,

How much control do we have,

Is really up for debate.

Sometimes we feel like we're really in control,

And sometimes we feel like we're really in control of our lives,

But then that tragedy happens that it then occurs that we didn't see coming,

And then we wonder,

Wow,

How much control do I really have?

Or we may think about how we got here.

We sure didn't choose our parents,

We didn't choose our genetics,

We didn't choose our environment that we grew up in,

And these things impact us greatly.

They shape who we are,

And other people didn't choose theirs,

And if we were in their shoes,

If we had their experiences,

Would we be that different from them?

Or might we be living on the street just like them,

Or suffering just like they are?

One of the things I've learned in life is there are a lot of factors going into shape,

What's happening in our lives right now,

And a lot of them we just don't have control over.

We can do our best,

We can try,

But even that effort of trying comes from our conditioning,

From our past.

If we are encouraged to try,

If we have positive responses from trying,

We probably will try and make change part of our life,

Growth part of who we are.

But many people face things that cause them to give up.

There's a psychological concept called learned helplessness,

Which I did my undergraduate research on,

And here's a good visualization to understand what it is.

If you put a walleye,

Which eats smaller fish like minnows,

Into an aquarium,

But you put a glass plate between the walleye and the minnows,

He or she will keep hitting that plate over and over again that finally the walleye will give up.

But then if you remove the plate and let the walleye get to the minnows,

Again the walleye will not eat the minnows because it's given up,

And it will actually starve to death even with minnows within its grasp.

Events in our lives shape us like that,

And sometimes they make us give up.

We just stop trying.

It feels pointless,

It feels useless,

It feels hopeless,

So we give up.

And those people's lives can be quite hard.

So where generosity plays a role,

And generosity plays a role in this,

Is that perhaps we can help others out through our loving gifts,

Through our time,

Through our effort.

But again,

This podcast is about happiness,

And I believe when we do that we are going to improve other people's lives.

But at the same time,

I really believe we improve our own lives because generosity just has a lot of good stuff that goes with it.

Again,

The research tends to support it.

Our brain actively works differently when we're generous,

And I think if we really reflect on times that we've been truly generous in our lives,

There's a lot of good things that come from that,

And we just feel better about ourselves.

I mean,

The truly classic story on this is Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.

When Ebenezer Scrooge is not giving to others,

He's a very miserable person.

But when he changes his story and starts living in a very different way,

Then we see him laugh,

Then we see him joyful,

Then we see the true Ebenezer come out.

So I think we all can probably agree that generosity,

When it's in its purest form,

Is beautiful.

It's something that helps others,

And it helps ourselves.

Where it can get tricky is it can get convoluted with stuff.

What do I mean by that?

Well,

Here's some healthy boundaries that I would suggest all of us apply if we're going to try to be more generous in our lives.

The first one is we should give to others out of the desire just to give,

Not to make ourselves impressive or have other people think highly of us.

I think that loses the generosity part of it.

If we're giving for praise,

If we're giving for someone to think we're awesome,

Then we're getting that gift.

We're not just getting the natural,

Spontaneous gift of generosity,

Doing it for others and having them think highly of us.

I'm not sure is the best way to be generous.

I mean,

I still think it can help people,

But I do think it's better to give anonymously,

To give in ways that really don't put the focus on us,

But put the focus on helping the other person.

That's the first thing I'd have in place.

Give,

But not with the gift of having people think highly of us.

Give with the gift of helping.

Just helping others.

The next thing is that we have to be careful to not let others manipulate us with our generosity.

This probably particularly extends to family members and friends.

We may be doing better than them in a variety of different ways,

And they think we owe it to them to be generous.

And I think we have to be really careful with that one.

That's a very slippery slope and can get us and them in a lot of trouble.

It's probably far better to give in ways that isn't expected.

When it's expected,

When they think we have to because we have more,

I think that's just a bad combination.

And I think we should find people that don't expect it from us.

There's a lot of people in the world that we can help with our generosity.

And a lot of times when we do with our family and friends,

It's not about that.

It's about manipulation.

It's about control.

It's about expectations.

It's not about the spontaneous gift of giving.

And again,

Like I said,

There are so many awesome organizations out there that we can give to that really use our time and money well.

When it comes to family and friends,

It's rarely about them being homeless.

It's rarely about them going hungry.

It has more,

Far more to do about other things.

But there are people out there,

A lot of people that are hungry.

There's a lot of people out there that are homeless.

There are a lot of people out there that are dying.

And without help,

Without our time,

They will die.

So why not consider giving to those type of causes?

And here's what I recommend.

Once we truly start exploring the world of need,

We're going to discover there's a lot of need out there.

So in order not to get overwhelmed,

In order to be proactively doing things that really make a difference,

Choose two.

Choose two causes,

Two things that you want to be involved with,

Again,

With your time,

Your money,

Or both.

And make that your focus.

And give to them regularly,

Give to them often,

And just keep giving.

Because I think that's a beautiful way to live life.

And then when other people reach out to us and ask us for help,

We can say,

No,

I'm actually already giving to other places.

Because once you start giving,

What you'll discover is your phone is going to really start ringing a lot.

Because once they discover that you give,

A lot of organizations may reach out to you.

But if you pick two and limit yourself to two,

Then what's going to happen is you're going to be involved with that organization,

You're going to understand the needs of the world,

And you're really going to be able to make a difference.

And then when family or friends get upset at us for not giving,

We know in our hearts that we are giving people,

But not always to everything.

And we do give to the causes that we believe in.

And it's easier than to set boundaries in these situations.

Here's a simple but really good example of this.

We get together,

Say,

With our cousins,

And we go out to a meal,

And the bill comes.

Now,

In the past,

They may expect us to buy because we make more money than them.

But if we buy,

That money then can't go to our causes that we really believe in,

Which we can write a check to tomorrow because we only paid for our part of the bill,

And we didn't buy their part of the bill.

I mean,

Obviously,

They have money to pay that bill,

They're not starving.

But the money we give to the organizations that we believe in,

They may be starving.

So by saying no to our cousins or our friends and saying yes to organizations,

We're making an impact on the world.

We tend not to do this because we're concerned about what people will think about us.

And that too is a very slippery slope.

If in our heart we know we're making a difference and we're not making a difference for the praise of others,

We're making a difference to make a difference,

Then when people get mad at us,

When they think we're stingy,

When they call us Ebonite or Scrooge,

But we know in our hearts we really are giving and we don't need their praise in order to give,

Then we're going to be in that place of generosity that is silent yet speaks so loudly.

Now there's one last thing I want us to be careful with,

And that's us.

Yes,

It's very beautiful to be generous with other people,

But what I've seen with people that give a lot is they forget to give to themselves.

And what happens is they get exhausted,

They get burnt out,

And then they can't give anymore.

If we make sure that we're okay along the way,

Giving to ourselves,

Being nice to ourselves,

Doing things that fill our cup up so that we can keep giving,

What will happen is then we're going to be able to keep giving until our dying breath.

And I think that's a lot better way to live life,

Because yes,

Other people matter,

But other people matter and we matter,

We all matter.

And some people,

I think when we get on that caring for other path can forget themselves,

And so they get burnt out,

They get exhausted.

But if we take time every day for ourselves,

Then what can happen is we can keep giving until our dying breath.

This one can be hard for people.

Some people are very generous with others,

But not very generous with themselves.

It's kind of the opposite of ebony or scrooge.

So we have to find that balance by giving to others and giving to ourselves.

And I think that ends up creating generosity that truly leads to lasting happiness.

And just one last thought,

You can throw this one out the window,

But I really think it's something that we should consider.

We're all someday going to die,

And we'll probably have something left to do.

And we'll probably have something left.

It may not be much,

Or maybe a lot,

But we'll probably have something left.

Perhaps,

Just perhaps,

Instead of leaving it all to our family,

Particularly if our family's grown and they're self-sufficient,

Consider leaving it to a good cause or two,

The two that we have been supporting throughout our lives,

And put them in our will.

And yes,

Though it may not make our family happy,

Our extended family,

I do think we'll have a larger impact on the world when we consider the impact we can have by being generous to the world.

Because ultimately,

The world,

Everyone on this planet,

Is our family.

And having our kids,

Our grandkids,

Perhaps have a little nicer home or nicer cars,

Versus helping our extended family not be homeless,

Not be hungry,

And so many other ways we can help people all over the world,

Which are all part of our family,

I think this may be something worth considering for all of us.

So going forward,

May we all find that generosity helps others,

Helps ourselves,

And it makes our world a kinder place to live in.

Thank you for joining me on the Happiness Podcast.

Besides creating this podcast,

There are a variety of other things that I do.

If you'd like to keep abreast of these activities,

And perhaps someday we may be able to meet in person,

Just go to www.

Happinesspodcast.

Org.

That's happinesspodcast.

Org.

You can subscribe to my newsletter.

And if you do,

You'll be emailed a free PDF copy of my meditation book called Reflections on Meditation.

And until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

Wonderful podcast, I loved it. I especially loved where you said 'everyone in this world is our family". Thank you for sharing 🙏

This made me think! Really!! Thank you so much for this

This man had one of the kindest voices I’ve ever heard. This makes sense to me, thanks Dr. Puff.

Love . Namasté 🕉💕💕

Very clear and thoughtful. Appreciated the comments on being too generous. Thank you!

You have confirmed my charity’s —yes it makes you feel so good, and yes the reward is a thousand fold with heart felt thanks from the recipient so humbling so gracious and pure of heart thank you Namaste 🙏🏻 love your pod casts

Thank you for this. I really enjoyed it.

A perfect message.
Thank you
Namaste 🦋