The more you give the more you get

Peter Rice gives his take on Mike Dickson's new book on giving, and explains why it's ok to feel good about it

Like dieting, yoga and spiritual groups often do, Dickinson's book starts with an appeal to people's nagging unease

Everywhere in the places where we eat, work, walk and sleep, we are confronted by posters, adverts and signs making bolder claims about helping you to 'find the inner you', 'rediscover your confidence' and 'create a new you'. Some even go so far as to mention that elusive, abstract, unattainable concept of 'happiness'. What are they trying to tap into? There is clearly something missing in the lives of many people, a nagging lack of inner tranquillity. As a result, they turn in on themselves, trying to find the heart of this unease and rip it out through yoga, dieting or subscribing to a new philosophy of life. But the soothing effects of the yoga wear off, the body insecurities prevail and the new philosophy fails to suppress the doubts – so how to make the effect permanent?

Enter Mike Dickson. Mike is the co-founder of Whizz Kids, a charity for disabled children. He also gives advice to companies and individuals on how best to donate to charity. The title of his book is the core of the thinking behind it: 'the more you give the more you get'. Like dieting, yoga and spiritual groups often do, he starts with an appeal to that nagging unease, asking, 'are you plodding through life or are you tearing around but at the same time feeling unfulfilled, discontented and plain knackered?' The difference is that instead of looking inwards to achieve it, he suggests that you look to others and do what you can to help others, and that brings permanent – and visible – results which benefit other people and (just as importantly) make you feel good. As the author himself says, 'This book is about charity and giving, but it is also a self-help book.'

Should we not be worried, though, about the ethical value of such self-centred motivations for giving? How can it be ethical to be charitable in order to make yourself feel better? Dickson doesn't address this point, as he is merely addressing the modern world on its own terms. But to attempt to answer the moral nit-pickers: giving feels good, because it is good. In order to feel good about giving, you have to see – or at least hear about – a school being built, a disabled child being given their own electric wheelchair, or a section of rainforest saved from destruction. It's clearly not wrong to feel happy about these and all the other tangible, beneficial results of giving time, money and effort to others. Moral nit-picking over.

So, how to give? Start with those closest to you and work outwards, says Dickson. Work out how people closest to you are feeling, and if they have anything that needs celebrating, solving, or just talking about, then give them your time. Working outwards, he then explains how best to give, what types of charities to give to and how to give – either your money or your time – in the best possible way. The endlessly inspiring individual stories, lists of charities, websites and phone numbers leaves you with no excuse not to pick up the phone or send an email. Yet the advice is still balanced: your job as a PR guru, cleaner, media sales executive or door-to-door salesman still serves a purpose to you and to others. The suggestion here is not that you sacrifice your life as it was entirely – that would be counterproductive. The point is that your disposable time and your disposable income (working out how much of those two there are in your life is one of the key messages of the book) are often whiled away in ignorance of the benefit that you can give if only you look outwards.