Volunteering

In our society it is advertised to help. The reason to volunteer is to feel better about ourselves and the reason to donate money is to get some sort of reward gift, doesn't that just seem wrong? Shouldn't we just help to help? I'm not saying that its not a constructive thing to do to make yourself feel like a better person, but why can't we do a completly altruistic act. Has our society really become so individualistic that we can only look at how our actions affect our own lives? Maybe it's just human nature, but it seems that over time our lives have become more seperate and we are solely concerned about what affects only us. I also believe that it intertwines with the concepts of religion. Religion teaches that you to be good person for some ultimate reason, depending on what religion you practice, but simply put, be good and you'll go to heaven or treat people right becuase what goes around comes around, but shouldn't there be more. Aren't we more compassionate and complex than to only concern ourselves with our own lives? We are all so concerned with our ultimate outcome, but when people remember who you are they do not think of your life in terms of how you lived it but how you have affected them, I guess it's just all a big circle.