It is generally accepted that only a kind and generous person with a big and bright soul can do good free of charge. Some people strongly disagree with this and believe that charity is something outdated, that all people are born with approximately equal starting data and everyone should help themselves. As always, the truth is somewhere in between.
Boys and girls born in the USSR literally with mother's milk absorbed the postulate that it is necessary to help the weak, offended and needy. In those days, people all over the world helped their fellow villagers, who for some reason could not cope with housekeeping on their own, took patronage over classmates who were lagging behind in their studies, on the street they invariably stood up for the one to whom the hooligans became attached. Today's teenagers for the most part no longer consider it their duty to provide free assistance to anyone. Is charity uniquely beneficial?
What kind of assistance can be considered free of charge?
You can help a person in a difficult life situation in different ways. You can give him money, with the help of which a person, if he does not improve his life, then at least reduce the urgency of some of his problems. If a person has nowhere to live, it is in your power to invite him to stay with you for some time, or at least help with the search for housing. Handing over practically unworn children's things, organizing an interview for a job, bringing surplus vegetables and fruits from your backyard - but you never know, how you can support a person in need.
Unselfish help does not only mean that the one extending a hand to a person at the moment of his weakness does not mean: from now on, he becomes his debtor and sometime in the future will certainly in one way or another repay his virtue. A truly unselfish person does not expect any return at all in exchange for all his labors - he helps only because he so wants, he is pleased to make this world a little cleaner and brighter. Helping people just like that, and not because somewhere and sometime every good deed will be "credited" to you - this is real charity.
Is gratuitous assistance definitely a blessing?
We can say with complete confidence that the provision of gratuitous assistance is in any case a blessing for the person who provides this assistance. If a person donates money within his power for the benefit of those in need or works as a volunteer in his free time, for example, in an orphanage or an animal shelter, such an activity fills his life with a special meaning. It is in such cases that he immediately sees the results of his work and realizes that another day of his life was not lived in vain.
As for the recipients of assistance, the mechanisms of its provision in Western countries are perhaps more reasonable in relation to them. This means that it is not enough to give money to the needy - it would be much more correct to take him by the hand and take him to where he can learn to earn his own living and food on his own. Unfortunately, a person is designed in such a way that he very quickly gets used to good things and begins to take external support for granted, which in turn surprises the person who provided him with this support. Thus, helping a person who finds himself in a difficult life situation is an important and necessary business, but it is hardly necessary to do it all the time.
