Your brain will turn to goo if you try it. You'll also go broke(r).

There are also good arguments about charity vs. organized mutual aid, where the former supports the current systemic sociopathy as a capitalism safety net while the latter at least screams, "capitalism is why we have to do this, end it now." This isn't to say that helping people is bad, but you should understand that it won't end the current system and can even prolong it.

Don’t we have a moral imperative to do literally everything we can? How do we have time for idle things?

This is an example of the infection of christian fundamentalist capitalist neoliberal conceptions guilt and virtue and how weve all been brainwashed into these forms of thinking. Idleness is demonized, productivity and relentless work, sacrifice, martyrdom, is seen as the highest virtue. All of this is to deal with the perceived guilt of being born a citizen of the imperial core, to purify oneself of all original sin.

This is a mind prison that capital and the elite have constructed over the course of modernity. Slave morality.

The way I see it, god is dead and anyone who tries to force upon us a moral system is doing so for their own cynical ends. There is no higher god who will punish us for doing "wrong", and all these bad feelings were taught, so I try to make an effort not to worry about this, to get over oneself, as Matt Christman puts it. Were all just a bunch of ants on a tiny rock hurtling through the void in the grand scale of things. This insignificance is peaceful.

I have no idea what your situation is or what prompted you to ask this so I can only offer my thoughts, please take it with a heap of salt if you find it does not help.

People who spend every waking moment attempting to help others burn out and stop. This is an observable fact.

Part of rationality is noticing when you reason yourself into a position that conflicts with observable reality, then backing up and letting reality win.

In this case the problem is thinking of yourself as a wantless needless indefatigable automata that executes your will, instead of as a person. We don't have wantless needless automatas to go do the things we want. Any proposal that relies on them is just as irrelevant as one that relies on sci fi matter replicators.

Help yourself before you can help others. I struggle with this a lot too, but we humans aren't productivity automatons. That's wishful thinking at best and ingrained capitalist propaganda in the realistic case.

Think about oxygen masks on airplanes. They tell you to put on your own mask before you assist others, even disabled people and children. That's very intentional, and it's because you can't help others if you don't even have what you need.

The best revolutionary activities are the ones where we can all help each other while helping ourselves :Care-Comrade:

Firstly, idle things are fun, and we're helping people so their lives can be more fun. Yes, you're sitting in riches, so was Engles and you bet he took the time to enjoy the privilege he had, even while devoting his life to the cause.

Heck Jenny was a no-shit noblewoman, and while she suffered severe privation by staying with Marx, she also wasn't beyond luxuries when they were stable financially.

Finally, Lenin points out that those in states of relative comfort but strong ideological convictions are the core of the Vanguard.

Most workers in lower strata have no time and no energy to militantly organise to the level of a professional revolutionary. (Though they often have substantial contributions to all levels of action)

Where possible, workers and the marginalised should be aggressively funded by the party so that they can have the time they need and take cadre positions. But this is limited, and even in developed economies where workers have better conditions, it's the upper comfortable strata of the Proletariat that have the capabilities to be most radical and develop theory and praxis.

(This incidentally is one reason the Mass Line is such a good tool, it forces the lefty tech bros to touch grass)

Not sure how old you are, but you should definitely take a couple college philosophy courses if you can. This is the sort of thing you might well spend several weeks talking about.

One of the most well known texts on the topic is The Importance of What We Care About, which is a collection of 13 famous essays about moral responsibility, including the titular one. You should definitely also read Peter Singer, though it's hard to say exactly where to start. I would probably say Practical Ethics, then The Most Good You Can Do, then The Life You Can Save.

The shorter answer is that I've personally adopted a philosophy (attributed to the Dalai Lama) of essentially "do the best thing you can in each situation you come across in life." In other words, I believe I have a moral imperative to help those I encounter, to treat everyone with kindness, and to make moral choices each time I am faced with a situation, but I do not believe that I have a moral obligation to actively seek out problems and solve them. I do go out of my way to help people I wouldn't have otherwise encountered, but I choose to do so because I want to help, rather than because I have a moral imperative to do so.

If you are constantly destroying yourself for others, than the amount of suffering in the world is the same, if not worse. Do not prioritize your wants over others' needs, but do prioritize your own needs.

You are people. Help yourself too.

There's only so much of your time you can spend trying to help others before you start to degrade your ability to be helpful, IMO. It's like the oxygen mask on the airplane--you have to put yours on first before helping others get theirs on, or you could end up passing out in the process.

Everyone's already given good answers, so to be flippant it's for the same reason on airplanes when you're told to put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others

Aim for perfect, knowing that we are all flawed humans incapable of perfection. But we must always strive for better, because the alternative is too bleak.

I'm not a fucking doctor and am not obligated to become one, so no.

I'm still waking up so I might come back to your direct question later and elaborate, but I feel as though a lot of people DO see their job as "helping people," regardless of what the job may be. Or at least, they try to justify it to themselves as such.

Surprised I haven't seen anybody so far articulate an anti-imperialist answer.

Because this moral imperative can be directed like a weapon by feeding one misinformation. If one lacks wisdom on imperialism, their moral imperative is worse than useless. Certain sections of the left wish to help Chinese people, we know where that mindset leads ultimately.

Something I heard from a comrade near me is that those people who contribute for a few hours or days are helpful, but those who devote their entire lives are true revolutionaries.

We can devote our lives to the cause without spending every waking second working on it. Have faith in yourself and others. Don't be overly harsh and self destructive when it's not necessary