Altruism in My Life Picking the topic of altruism wasn’t a very difficult choice for me. This is a trait that I feel I have had my entire life and is a trait I feel is obvious in my personality. When taking the personality test for the Big Five I scored a 99 in Agreeableness and I feel like throughout my life empathy is something that has always been shown and taught to me. I can’t really explain why I became so altruistic, both of my parents have always shown altruism in their own ways, but they were never the type to take their weekends to volunteer for example. However I have over 300 hours volunteering at just my local wildlife shelter alone. Though I do not wish to be too out in the open with my life I feel some is necessary to tell to help explain why I feel the trait of altruism has been so prevalent in my life. When I was four years old and my sister was only two my parents divorced and my mother moved over three hours away, which left my father working all of the time to support us. This meant that as I grew up I took the role as ‘mom’. My younger sister relied on me for a lot of things such as cooking, laundry, and help with homework. The reason I feel this relates to my trait of altruism is because I feel from a young age, as I said, I was ‘mom’. I was expected to have empathy for my sister, to always help her with things. Most siblings will do things for one another, but not always without being asked to help first. However in my case cooking for her and helping with homework were things I did because I wanted to. I wanted to take care of her and always help her with anything she had problems with. The altruism that first really manifested from caring for my sister, then spread to the other aspects of my life. When my sister finally was old enough to do most things on her own I began to feel bored and stagnate. Volunteering became my life whenever I wasn’t in school. I desire to help others was constant. The local wildlife shelter became my second home almost. I was there almost every single day after school. The work wasn’t always fun, but I knew I was making a difference to the animals’ lives. When I first arrived, I started out cleaning cages and cutting up the raw meat and fish. However, after I had been there for roughly four …show more content…
Again this is something psychologists may never know. It is important for everyone to always try and show some sign of altruism on a daily basis. Not only will and individual be helping others in bigger ways they may never know, but there are indeed countless ways in which being altruistic helps that individual. Altruistic acts can be short term or can help people long term. Being altruistic isn’t always easy. Looking for those opportunities to help isn’t always as obvious as volunteering but, sometimes a person has to look a little deeper to really help people. No matter what it’ll be worth it in the end. Even with the odds against the altruistic trait biologically, that even had Darwin himself confused, altruistic individuals have managed to persevere and survive, helping