It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man (or woman) can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
American Essayist, Lecturer and Poet
I suppose that Emerson copies Jesus -- "it is more blessed to give than to receive." In giving, we receive back what we have given and it becomes truly ours. When we love another person, then that also love feeds us. Erich Fromm, in The Art of Loving, wrote a small classic that resonates with this truth. He asks how many of us sit back and wonder when we will be loved. The truth is that we receive love by loving--and it grows and and magnifies. You cannot shake hands without clasping a hand--you cannot love without engaging and connecting with another person.
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