Throughout this section I have been emphasizing getting social support from the right person, the right network of friends, the right community. Often, one of the strongest stress-reducing qualities of social support is the act of giving social support, to be needed. The twelfth-century philosopher Maimonides constructed a hierarchy of the best ways to do charitable acts, and at the top was when the charitable person gives anonymously to an anonymous recipient. That’s a great abstract goal, but often there is a staggering power in seeing the face that you have helped. In a world of stressful
...more
