How Can I Help?: Stories and Reflections on Service

by Ram Dass

The condition of helplessness is one that we tend to push away, deny, or stigmatize as a society and as individuals. Our cultural myths neither encourage us to accept a common helplessness nor teach us how to act upon it. When it’s suddenly thrust upon us, we’re unprepared. For example, many of us feel resigned to helplessness as citizens. In a society that so inordinately emphasizes power, many of us feel we have little influence over conditions beyond our most immediate circumstances. We may see injustice and neglect or sense the sterility of mass culture. The quality of education, the organization of work, the anonymity of community life, all may distress us. But we frequently feel impotent to change these conditions. The choices we’re given often seem empty and hollow. Half of us don’t vote for president; even fewer elect local officials. We’re offered thirty brands of blue jeans; everyone knows they’re really the same. The program on television is a bore; we switch channels—some choice. Frustrations accumulate, resignation reigns. “What are we going to do?” we sigh. What’s the point in dwelling upon it? It only makes us feel worse.