There's a whole period of my life that's kind of lost to time, from 2005 - 2011 I was playing World of Warcraft.
That's where I learned that I want to be helpful.
I remember the moment I got my warlock to level 60, this goal I'd worked toward for weeks, and a friend asked me to go into Blackrock Depths, which is this sprawling near-endgame dungeon with a bunch of different areas. And he knew his way around. He was tanking and navigating and making sure everyone had mana before pulling.
And I was like, fuck, that's the coolest job ever. I want that to be me. I started levelling a warrior the same day.
There's something about the quality of being quietly competent, attentive, protective, knowledgeable, and encouraging that speaks to everything I want to be. Some people are better at it than others. But from that day it was the only thing I wanted to do in that game for six years.
Sometimes I'd dip into the random dungeon queue, and I'd show up with random people and do my job - competent, attentive. I'd note when the mana users were drinking and wait for them, I'd catch mobs when someone accidentally pulled, I'd make sure the CC'd mobs didn't have dots on them. And people would fucking love me for it. I'd get whispers from randos saying I was the best tank they'd ever played with, because I guess in the random queues no one wants that job or cares about doing it right.
I went from being some rando to an officer in a raiding guild to being a "main tank" to basically organizing, running, teaching raid encounters... and after I graduated school and started working a corporate job I realized I'd already climbed a corporate ladder, in these tiny little groups of people. I just cared more about protecting the health and armor repair costs of these friends than I ever cared about my job title IRL. Getting messages from people saying "you're my favorite tank to heal, you actually use your cooldowns" and "I love when you're tanking cuz I don't have to worry about my threat" made me feel better than anything a manager has ever told me.
So when I tell people I like being helpful, I'm thinking about what I learned from all the time I spent getting punched in the face by dragons.