The Oxygen Mask Principle & One Big Problem With Charity
Who do you help first, yourself, or others?
When you’re on a plane, they teach you to put your oxygen mask on first BEFORE you help other people with theirs. Their logic is sound—it’s much harder to help other people when you’re unconscious.
I have no right to tell you what to do with your life, but I can share with you all the ways I implement the Oxygen Mask Principle in mine:
Serving myself food before I serve others
We all know politeness can get in the way of a good meal. When everyone is too shy to go first, there's an awkward tension that prolongs everyone’s hunger. People start taking less than they want off each plate. It’s a very awkward stand-off from which no one benefits.
A few years ago, I realised how to fix this—I jump in and serve myself first. I first make sure my plate is full before offering to serve others. This breaks the tension, making everyone else feel comfortable. Because no one else is ‘that guy’ rude enough to go first, they’re free thereafter to serve themselves.
If everyone ensures their plate is full, all plates will be full.
I also start eating first at restaurants, even if others at my table are still waiting for food. That way, if anyone else wants to start eating, they’re now free to do so. I’ve taken the bullet, being ‘the impolite one,’ so they don’t have to.
Taking the last cookie, piece of bread, or other
No one wants to take the last cookie or piece of cake. No one wants to be the reason there's nothing left of whatever god darned thing is staring up at them from the bottom of the jar, tempting everyone, even though no one's taking it.
Some time ago, I decided on a simple rule to end this dilemma for good. Jump on the grenade—always take the last cookie.
Pushing my way off a plane first
After sitting patiently on a plane for one, or several, hours, or even half a day, I lose all patience the moment it lands. I can't waste a second more. Everyone is on the same page, needing to evacuate IMMEDIATELY upon landing—even before the seat belt sign is turned off.
By shouldering my way out of the row of seats and through the rush of people clogging up the aisle, I create room for others, becoming one less person in the congestion.
I use a similar rule of thumb when driving. If someone wants to get into my lane, I speed up to create room behind me. There's no point in letting someone in only to whiz through and overtake them thereafter.
Reinvesting in myself before I donate to others
Here’s the reason I don’t give much money to homeless people or charity at the moment.
It’s mathematically illogical.
Consider this: I could give $10 away to a needy person. But my problem is I’m intelligent, crafty and entrepreneurial—for every $10 I could give to a person in need, I could instead reinvest into myself and make $20—which means $10 each to two needy people, instead of $10 to one needy person.
Of course, doing that would be inadvisable. I can reinvest that $20 to make at least $20 more, thus enabling me to help four people in equivalent terms. On and on this goes.
For this reason, it doesn’t make sense to ever give to a needy person, so long as I’m reinvesting in my financial well-being—for the sake of the needy, of course.
I’m loading up for one huge, altruistic pay-off further down the line, way way way way in the future. Those struggling now will come to thank me later.
A Big Problem With Charity
It turns out that old saying is right—in a way.
To help others, you have to help yourself first.
Sometimes, in the process of charity, the charitable effort becomes self-defeating.
This can be emotional—for example, if someone you’re trying to help frustrates and aggravates you to the point where you unravel faster than you’re helping them.
It can be financial—if Joe has $100, and gives $10 to every poor person he sees, then in ten people’s time, Joe will be broke with nothing left to give.
For those of you who don’t know, I spent a few years involved in a nonprofit with this lovely man. Throughout this experience, one of the funniest criticisms I saw lobbed at charitable institutions, nonprofits and NGOs was the ‘How much of it [the money/donation/aid] ends up in the hands of the actual people who need it?’
Donors are horrified to find that in many occasions only 10-30% (extreme cases, ranges a lot) of their donation might end up in the hands of the ‘needy’, while the rest is chewed up by admin, red-tape, organisational costs, or whatever else.
Yet in general business terms, certain industries consider a 20% profit margin healthy. Others, usually operating at larger scales, benchmark a 10% profit margin, and in the biggest of the big businesses, breaking even or even operating at a loss for a time can be a sensible thing to do. There are some obvious reasons for these tighter profit margins—competition for talent and labour, the need to reinvest profits, budgeting for marketing, and the costs of producing or delivering services.
It’s rather odd how, once we decide we’re being altruistic, the rules of business and sustainability that apply in our regular working world cease to exist—and do-good institutions are supposed to operate on something approaching a 100% profit margin. Not only that, but we usually assume things that are free, cheap or low cost are of lesser quality or value—especially when it comes to talent. Few of us expect people, especially good people, to work for free—until it becomes about giving back or helping others.
We’re being generous, so they should be generous, too. Just a lot more generous.
Now there are caveats and nuances to this—lack of accountability, poor feedback loops, the prevalence of people who abuse systems of charity and aid—such realities give us cause to be cynical or critical when we learn donated funds are being chewed up by middlemen (or women) and third parties.
But no one I know can breathe without air.
We should also remember that there is probably no such thing as a truly ‘selfless’ act.
So, ironically, even when we’re being ‘generous’, we’re likely following the Oxygen Mask Principle ourselves…