Is Helping Others, REALLY Helping Others?

Is Helping Others, REALLY Helping Others?

There is something that dawned upon me a few years back and I believe that it has been one of the most significant realizations that I had. While it may seem very commonplace, it can prove to be a great rule to live by, if internalized.

The realization that helped me move one step closer to being more in control of my emotions, feelings, and actions was that there is absolutely nothing that I can do about another person’s behavior, emotions or feelings. The one thing that I DO have control over (and that too eliminating the crushing and totally uncontrollable nature of the hormones) is my own beliefs, feelings, and actions.

How Can Helping Someone be Harmful?

One might think of helping someone as a good deed, something that all human beings should extend towards each other. It is definitely one of the things we are taught in school. While helping someone who is facing a life or death situation is morally justified, helping others is often used as an excuse to say and do a lot of things that may actually not be ‘helping’. How often have we heard the term, ‘I was only trying to help!’

Your Perspective or Theirs?

When you set out to help someone because you feel they need the help, it implies that you are looking at life from your own perspective. If the other person has not asked for help in verbal or non-verbal ways, it is presumptuous to assume that they need help. For example, if you think a friend is going through financial trouble and you offer to give them money, they may actually be offended by it. They may not be looking for that help or they may not want that help from you. Maybe they want to look for a better paying job or ways of reducing their expenditure or maybe they are not having financial trouble at all and are happy with the amount of money they have. By offering them help you may actually be increasing the temptations to shop that they may be trying to avoid.

Your Solution or Theirs?

Despite your best intentions, there is no guarantee that your solution may work out for the other person. I have coached people looking to put themselves out there to be able to meet boys and heard stories of how their friends suggested that they should have a couple of shots of vodka and put themselves out there. Well-meaning advice that really went southwards because the person is not comfortable with quick shots of vodka or being an extrovert. So, while the friends may be able to carry off a trick like that, it can be pretty unnerving for a personality that is not ready to handle that environment.

Your Agenda or Theirs?

The human mind is such a confusing entity that psychologists, neurologists, and neuroscientists believe that despite knowing what we know today about the human brain, we have only begun to scratch the surface. When you have this urge to help someone without being asked, take a step back and think about what motive you might have. I am not suggesting that you may have a vicious motive to harm the other person but it is wise to consider whether your willingness to help comes from a desire for your own self. For example, you want to contribute to community service because you don’t have friends and need some human contact or you want to help your relatives because you have a self-identity of being helpful and that gives you a purpose in life. But being aware of it allows you to understand the reasons and protect you from becoming a victim too so you don’t continue even when you know people are taking advantage of this ‘need’ of yours to help!

Your Benefit or Theirs?

Helping people while being aware of how it helps you in the process (or what your motivations are) is great! However, you can only get the water to the horse and if they don’t like what you bring, they may not really accept the help. Being aware of this aspect can save you from disappointment. So, remember that you can only do your part without the expectation that your help will be accepted or praised or appreciated. It is almost essential to dissociate yourself from the help that you are offering.

This manifests very often when we ask someone for a suggestion and they listen to you but act differently. The most common reaction tends to be, “Why did you ask me, if you did not want to take my suggestion?” Well, the obvious answer to that is that the person wanted your suggestion to consider things. There was no inherent promise that they would follow what you suggested. But it is almost as if we get attached to our own suggestion and get hurt when people act otherwise.

So, Can You Even Help Someone Ever?

I should state here that I am not against helping others. In fact, I feel that there is a sense of fulfillment that one receives when we help someone. If you feel compassionate about someone or something, it is absolutely okay to act on what you feel like doing. But I do want people to start looking at this ‘help’ a little more critically because a lot of harm is often done in the garb of ‘helping’ others (more often than not the harm is done unconsciously).

“I was only trying to help”, is not an excuse that we can give people when things do not go in their favor. Before you step out to give your opinion or help someone, think whether they need it, whether your solution can be their solution, whether you have your own motives and whether you are just putting yourself up as a sacrificial lamb to get slaughtered with unmet expectations!

So when and how should you help?

When you help someone, make sure that you help:

• when help is asked for
• based on the requirement of the one who needs help
• based on the solutions that suit them (not on what you think suits them or what you think should suit them)
• while being aware of your own motivations
• without expectations that your solution will be accepted and put into action

One person who you can definitely help is YOU! There are a lot of areas that each one of us needs help in and one of the ways in which we can redeem ourselves is by knowing our limiting beliefs. This is what I set out to deta`il in my next article – Forget the PIPE Dream – Limiting Beliefs that Hold Us Back!

Watch out for that in a few days.