By the age of 3 most kids start what's called 'selective sharing', meaning they share with or help kids or adults who they are familiar with. Kids also at age three will start enforcing social norms. Things that are seen as the rules of the household will begin to be reinforced by the children themselves onto strangers and newcomers to the home. This natural sense of helping, sharing, and enforcing of social norms sometimes gets lost as we grow older.

We have become a nation of people who tend to keep to themselves. If we see someone in distress oftentimes we will look away or not help, however the thought of us not assisting will stick with us for the remainder of the day. We are going against our natural instincts when we do not display a sense of assisting others in our community involvement. When we do, however,research has shown that our acts of kindness help boost our rate of happiness. For the most part, helping others also helps us help ourselves.

Often, when we see people who have become successful financially, one of the first questions that we tend to ask is whether he or she is giving back to their community. If they are not active in giving back to poorer communities we tend to associate them with having less compassion, or even going as far as looking at them as selfish monsters, less than humans. A part of creating balance is giving. We build up our lives and set ourselves up to obtain, but we also have a basic human need to give back. Giving back doesn't have to be a financial contribution, actually it is just as important that we give back in terms of time and effort.