The Best Way to Help Others and the World (Jung/Nietzsche)
How to help.
How many times have you felt the desire to help a person, a family, a cause, a country, a dream, an idea—or even humanity itself?
Surely more than once. And if you've explored even a little Jungian psychology, you may have found in it a wisdom that can truly contribute to the world, to our time, and to those yet to come.
The desire to help is natural. But Nietzsche and Jung, in today’s reflections, offer meaningful guidance for how to carry out this task in the most powerful way.
Context: In the final chapter of the first part of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, titled “Of the Gift-Giving Virtue”, the prophet Zarathustra gives his disciples a final speech before retreating once more into his cave.
There, he encourages them to reach their highest virtue—the “gift-giving virtue.”
He also urges them to offer themselves as blessings and offerings to humanity when he says:
“Truly, I divine you well, my disciples: you strive, as I do, for the gift-giving virtue. What would you have in common with cats and wolves? This is your thirst: to become gifts and offerings yourselves; and therefore you thirst to gather all riches in your soul.”¹
Carl Jung comments on this:
“To be valuable gifts, they should first be gold—and to be gold, they must eat the gold of the world. They must acquire, appropriate, accumulate riches and store them in their souls to become a noticeable gift. Many people believe that offering themselves is a gift. Not at all! It is a burden. If a poor man gives me his last coin, I receive a terrible burden. If a rich man gives from his abundance, I have received a gift. But a beggar cannot offer himself. What is he then? Does he have any value? Not at all. He is an empty sack.”²
Zarathustra invites his disciples not to remain passive, but to become living gifts—that is, beings whose very existence is a valuable offering to the world.
He proposes that one should become something so full, so rich, so spiritually abundant, that it can be offered as a true gift to others.
It is not about giving for the sake of giving, but about being so full that giving becomes a natural overflow.
Jung, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of assimilating and transforming the experience of the world—the “gold of the world”—to acquire real value.
Only then, after having integrated wisdom, depth, and lived experience, can one offer themselves as a true gift—not as a burden.
The psychoanalyst insists that giving from a place of lack—from emotional, spiritual, or even material poverty—may not be a gift at all, but rather a weight.
He offers the example of a beggar offering his last coin: rather than gratitude, such an act may generate emotional debt, because it does not come from abundance but from despair or emptiness.
It would be like someone who gives themselves to others out of fear of loneliness, or who gives hoping to be rewarded by heaven.
In this way, Nietzsche’s gift-giving virtue is not simply about giving things.
It is about embodying the highest form of giving: offering oneself as a fertile presence—someone who can enrich others without becoming impoverished or manipulative in the process.
If we follow the model that works, we love ourselves, we accumulate and live in abundance; we share our virtue because we have charm, we radiate, and something naturally overflows from our fullness.
But if we hate and despise ourselves—if we have not accepted our own model—then the hungry creatures (the stealthy cats, the beasts and parasites) that are part of our inner makeup approach others like flies, seeking to feed on the hunger we have not satisfied.
The best thing we can do for others is to realize our own model
Carl Jung continues:
“If we follow the model that works, we love ourselves, accumulate and live in abundance; we share our virtue because we have charm, we radiate, and something naturally overflows from our fullness. But if we hate and despise ourselves—if we have not accepted our model—then the hungry animals (the stealthy cats and other beasts and parasites) that are part of our constitution approach our neighbor like flies, to satisfy the appetite we have not fulfilled.”³
Here, Jung deepens and forcefully closes the earlier warning:
If you have not undergone inner transformation and remain empty, your giving to others won’t be generous—it will be parasitic.
The model that works—the one we are called to realize—is the Self. That means becoming what we are meant to be.
This process includes accepting who we truly are (with both light and shadow), and cultivating our inner potential. In short: individuation.
This way, the person radiates from a full inner source. Giving, then, does not impoverish—it expresses a sacred overflow.
By contrast, those who have not accepted or fulfilled themselves inwardly cannot give anything truly authentic. Instead of offering a gift, they project their inner hunger onto others.
Jung’s reflection compels us to ask: Is my offering born from fullness—or from lack? Am I truly offering something that is mine—or am I using the other to feel needed, to feel like someone who matters, a savior? Am I radiating virtue—or am I sending “flies” to colonize the other with my unresolved hunger?
If we are honest with ourselves, we will see that only when we have made peace with who we are and cultivated real inner wealth can we give ourselves to others without becoming a burden, a shadow, or an invader disguised as a lover, friend, servant, or guide.
Those who make peace with themselves are like gold
Jung closes the seminar session with the words:
"As you can see, the people who can reconcile with themselves are like gold. They are deeply satisfying, and they are pursued by all the flies.”⁴
When Jung says these people are “like gold,” he is invoking the alchemical image of gold as something purified by fire—something that has endured inner trials and reached an incorruptible state.
He is not speaking of a “good character” in the moral sense, but of profound inner transformation: someone who has integrated, accepted, and stopped dividing themselves internally.
They have done the work of becoming authentic—of living in harmony with their inner model, their Self. And that’s precisely why “they are deeply satisfying.”
Their presence, their words, their actions—even their silent being—has depth, meaning, and radiance, because it is authentic and whole. The comparison with gold also implies rarity and value.
They don’t need to speak loudly or appear superior—what they are radiates naturally, and others recognize it, even if they can’t explain why.
This quality turns them into a magnet—not only for those seeking light, love, or guidance, but also for what is unresolved in others.
So if you have managed to realize your model, the only thing to be cautious of are the flies—those people, emotional parasites, dependencies, projections, envies, and unmet needs who, upon approaching the gold, try to take without giving, to consume without understanding.
Just as honey attracts insects, refined souls attract both admiration and the shadow sides of others. This can also serve as a warning:
Achieving wholeness does not spare you from conflict. On the contrary, it may make you more visible to the tensions of the world.
To be “gold” is not to be untouchable—it is to be precious even in one’s vulnerability, and resilient in the face of those who would feed on that value.
But from that place, we can truly give something of ourselves—to the world, to others, and thus to humanity.
In that way, our existence can genuinely leave a mark and serve humanity—because our consciousness was able to fulfill the mission assigned to it by the Self.
So if you truly wish to make your contribution to this time, accept yourself. Love yourself. Resolve your conflicts. Focus on becoming who you are.
This is not selfish—it is the most meaningful thing you can do for others. It is the greatest gift you can offer humanity.
Remember: I’ve committed myself to deeply studying all of Jung’s work and also to freely sharing what I learn, so my content will always be free. But if you’d like to support my project, I’d gladly accept a coffee:
I also recommend that you read my following publications:
The meaning behind our death, according to Jung and Nietzsche
Jung and Nietzsche: The Secret and Wisdom of Your Inner Serpent
Sources:
1. Chapter 22 of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Part One, “On the Gift-Giving Virtue.”
2, 3, 4. Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934–1939, Volume 2, Session II, January 29, 1936, Carl Jung, commentary on Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra.
Thanks, a great lesson indeed!
He who has not first healed himself is unable to help anyone else.