Living for the Sake of Others | Forum

I suddenly feel like the bad guy in Billy Madison.

Having others in life to do things for is nice. Your body releases reward chemicals for "altruistic" actions. This is rooted in empathy.  Most higher mammals have observed empathy based help/reward tendencies. 

Like when people see a stranded motorist they will be wired to help without consideration for the sawed off shotgun waiting to carjack them. And since that rarely happens you have a species of folk that still get high off helping others.  

Just like dolphins get high rescuing imperiled surfers.

And because dolphins don't have any religious indoctrination I am aware of I have to conclude dolphins, like humans, have instincts to do things for the random distressed creature. 

When strangers ask me for help, all I feel is annoyed. Like when I'm in Manhattan and someone begs me for five bucks. All I feel is the impulse to beat them with a baseball bat.

When friends or family ask, my reaction is different. I'm less annoyed. I may even do as asked, if it's not too demanding. I may even volunteer without being asked. But only if it's not too demanding. An example of something too demanding would be helping someone move. When I myself move, I pay a moving company. Another example of something too demanding would be helping someone paint their house, either inside or outside. When I wanted my own place painted, I paid someone.

Now if a friend or family member was too poor to pay movers or painters, I might volunteer to pay the bill. But only once. I wouldn't make a habit of it.

If a friend turned out to be chronically in need, I would gradually pull away until I no longer had anything to do with the person. In the case of a family member who was chronically in need, I would help them sometimes, not every time.

As for the weird dopamine high some people allegedly get, I'm not one of those people. What gives me a quick dopamine high is managing to escape the situation without having promised to help.

This is covered in the "not all vampires suck blood" chapter of the satanic bible. There's nothing wrong with helping out Friends or family members with favors or some spare cash from time to time but it must be a mutual thing. You gotta be able to rely on them to repay the favor or float you some cash when down on your luck. As for people who regularly try to guilt you into doing things for them and cannot do anything for themselves, there's no other logical choice but to cut these psychic vampires out of your life.