03 Mar May I have the honor of helping you?

Today is my brother’s birthday, the only living member of the immediate family I was born into. Happy birthday “Bhyya” (that means “Big Brother”).

My brother is a physician – a gastroenterologist. He is one of the finest human beings I know and I don’t say that only because he used to lend me money all too often when I had spent all of mine, growing up in boarding schools (although that is reason enough to appreciate him – as I did back then). My admiration for him is now based on what I have witnessed over the years as we became adults. One incident that always stands out in my mind is when, as a young physician, he sat by the bedside of one of his terminal patients. This patient had a family too poor to travel to the city where he was hospitalized to be with him during his last moments. My brother knew that there was nothing else he could do as a physician for this patient. So he did the one thing he could do as a fellow human being. He sat by his bedside and held the hand of this dying man, to comfort him through words and human touch. He sat there all night in the hospital ward until the man took his last breath. And in his last moment, that man must have known that he was not dying alone, that someone cared.

We live in a fiercely competitive society. We compete for advantage, prosperity, recognition, and fulfillment of our self-image. We are also good people and we care and like to help others. But with the hectic lives we live, would you agree that we often forget to do the small but immensely meaningful things for others? I know I am guilty of this and would like to compensate somehow for my focus on my own goals and objectives by being of service to another.

So, on my brother’s birthday, the best gift I can give him is to honor his selfless human spirit. I would like to have the honor of helping you – the reader.

I am a man of finance and technology, not a physician. If my skills and experience can help you solve a business problem, please allow me the honor of being of service to you. All I ask in return is that you do the same for someone else when and if you are able. We can all use a helping hand now and then. We all have the capacity to care and be of service to one another. Let this day be a day we offer to do something for someone else without wanting anything in return.

May I have the honor of helping you?