I do a lot in the business of helping other people. As a day job I help a young disabled man, who are in need of constant help. As a philosopher my single most important job, is to try and help around the globe. 

So, as a person, I believe I have some insight into the great and difficult art of helping other people. 

Let me be honest about from the beginning. Sometimes I really hate it. When the bills are difficult to pay, when you harassed by the system, when people hate me. Times like that, I really hate it. 

Not that I would do anything else, but I believe that being a helper is not for the fainthearted. You should not try and help if you want personal gratification or to feel good yourself. If you have these motives please try and focus on other things. 

Helpers need to help, because they see it as a moral fight and mission of a spiritual nature. They do it to pull people out of the material trap that is often trapping people. 

In a sense, you should be strong enough to delve into the world of corruption, abuse and alcoholism without being tainted by it yourself.

That is really, really difficult, you have to be strong at heart.Empedocles, the Ancient Greek philosopher saw natural development as a sphere. At the fringes of the sphere there is strife, in the center there is love. Helping is about putting yourself into the midst of that sphere and be the little seed of love. Because the natural development of the sphere is to move forward and backwards from strife to love, to strife. It is a movement of waves. 

So instead of producing a wave, what you do, is to find the center of the sphere of a given community, and support that. 

It is not about yourself, it is about other people, that need help.

Now, going out into the wild is like a frontier movement. People who need help, are often sucked into the material world big time. They suffer from all kinds of misgivings. They drink too much, sometimes even taking harder drugs. They steal, they are violent.

These are the people, who truly need help the most. 

But working with people like that is not easy. Because how do you really help people who are so sucked into the material world, and are almost dying of it?

You do it by being a good friend. It is not about the money, it is about your support on an human level. 

This will put yourself in a tough spot, so you need to be strong. 

Being strong yourself is the most important. That is why you should focus on getting your own life up to date and as sound as possible. Off cause you should do that regardless, but also because if you put yourself in a situation where you have a mental surplus, then you are truly able to help.

Now, what do you do, if you are a philantropist, and happen to have a lot of money that you want to do good with in the world. 

First of all, don’t buy the easy tricks. Don’t go with the mainstream, go out there and find people who are in need. But do not support them yourself, find those people in the local community who are the ones who try and help and have some mental surplus themselves, and help them. Because these Angels in the local community are the ones who truly know what is up and down in the community, and are not prone just to take the money for themselves. 

That is really the difficult part, because good people usually do not cry out for money. They are content in just doing their work. 

But if you give them some money, they can enhance what they are doing already. Just make sure they are not dependent on you.

The truly difficult thing about helping and philanthropy in general, is that the persons who truly needs your help are those who cry out the least. They often just suffer, suppressed by someone. 

A good example are the Egyptian Copts, who are an amazing Christian minority. They are so uncorrupted themselves and amazing, and they receive very little help. 

That is a good project there, helping those Copts, they are actually in a lot of problems right now. Suffering from abuse of different kind. 

Giving them money would be a kind thing.

Then, never go on the beaten path. Because the beaten path is usually just another system of power abuse of some kind. 

Go out there and look for people who suffer in the silent. Like the Yazidi who were sold as slaves by ISIS. 

So in essence, find the local lightbringers and try to help them. 

G-d bless the will to do good.