Givers and Other People’s Dishes
A friend recently told me that she enjoyed helping her friend move house much more than she’d enjoyed moving house herself. It brought to mind something my grandmother would often say. My grandmother is 93, but our grandparents are always old to us so it feels like she’s been that age forever. Since I can remember, every time she has come to my house she has, almost on instinct, gone straight to the sink to do our dishes. She would also remark, as is customary at this point, “isn’t it funny how we enjoy doing other people’s dishes but not our own”. I’ve never done someone else’s dishes, but if I did I’m sure I’d like it more than doing my own dishes… which I’ve also never done, but the point remains.
For some people it would seem that other people’s problems are great incentivisors (might have just made that word up - a motivator and incentive combo). Is this true for most people? To an extent perhaps it is the case. Many people spring into action far quicker when there’s an external reason or pressure to do so. Conversely, people often find being self-directed difficult, almost like their own desire is not quite enough of a reason to do something wholeheartedly, if at all.
It’s not surprising to me, as I’m sure it won’t be to you, that both of the people I’ve mentioned could be classified as “givers”. To do someone else’s dishes brings with it many things: the feel good factor of alleviating someone (who’s often close to you) from one of life’s great annoyances, the subtle strengthening of a bond or being the helping hand that reaches out. To do your own dishes brings with it… clean dishes, that will end up getting dirty again pretty soon. Doing someone else’s dishes, silly as it sounds, can have symbolic weight. Doing your own is just a chore.
(Thought experiment: if you gave two givers the others’ chores to do on a regular basis, would those chores get done more effectively than if they did their own?)
For the givers of the world the golden rule ought to be inverted as advice for them: treat yourself as you would treat others. If they could summon up the same intensity of action for themselves as they do for others they’d be far better served - by themselves.
Nathan, you've never experienced the joy of washing your grandmother's dishes? As someone who frequently jumps in to do dishes for other people... I recommend it! (But then again, I also love doing my own dishes.)
I think with one's own chores, there's often a lack of urgency and thus a greater tendency to put things off. When it comes to helping others, even if we genuinely care about the other party, I think there's also - at least subconsciously - a self-interested, less altruistic component. Maybe not in the sense of expecting the other person to do dishes in return; more so because it feels like the right thing to do in that moment, and we want to feel like we're helpful people. I imagine that after doing the dishes for someone else (whom we don't completely despise), most people feel at least a bit happier inside. Once we've committed to helping someone else out, and especially if it's done of our own volition, yes, it feels less like a chore.
When I was still in school i was able to negotiate that we only get homework on the weekends. But because school kinda bored me and i had to spend a BIG majority of my days there, beeing in a school program where we had school longer then others, I just never felt like doing my homework at any time (except english so others could copy - team work makes the dream work ;) )
On my weekends I was with my friend a lot. She had a mini job caring out commercial papers once a week. I was always pretty active and I just started helping her with it. Then I got so use to it that I did most of them in a short time so we could go back to hanging out :) Over time she kinda started doing my homework for me, just because she was such a sweetheart and knew I wouldn't wich then would count as a bad grade for me.
In that case of doing the chore of the other always stayed rewarding and it felt awesome that my friend would help me out like that with no real reason since I wanted to help her out with the papers regardless of getting enything back.
But then again we did the chore the other hated that we didn't mind ourselves, so I don't know if it counts X)
Also when I notice im beeing very hard on myself, I try to view myself as I would a friend I'd want to help. Its how I find advice and constructive feedback from a loving place within.
So what you said about treating yourself like you would others in order to get things done for yourself sounds amazing! I've never thought to go about it like that in those kinds of matters as well.
Thanks for the thoughts :D
Have a nice weekend :)
Edit: spelling, typing and grammar errors... guess I should've done some homework after all ;P