If You Really Want to Help, Just Let it Be

There are a great many well-meaning people, who intend to be helpful; they want to have a positive impact on someone else’s life so much that the effort becomes more about them helping than the ones they are trying to help.  When this occurs, those who are receiving the “help” must question the real intent and meaning of these actions.

In observing a “helper,” you tend to notice one of three things: they truly want to help, they are helping to satisfy a self-gratifying desire to help or they feel obligated to help in some way.

When someone wants to help for self-gratifying reasons, they generally care more about what they get out of the act, as opposed to the “help” actually being helpful and welcome by the other individual.  The end result of this sort of behavior, is that the “helper” is merely trying to control the situation, without regard to the wishes of the other individual.

If someone wants to experience something in their own way, then how helpful is it to force “help” upon them; when, in doing so, it causes more problems than it solves?  Then what we have here is not “help” at all, but a form of selfishness labeled as “help.”

Since the person on the giving end of this energy believes that they are only being helpful; they become unaware of the fact that they are actually doing more harm than good to those who they claim to be caring about.

If one really cares about another, then why not honor their wishes fully, without projecting guilt towards the other for not wanting the help?  Might one think that they “know better than the other,” how to live that other person’s life; and have “been there” and “done that”; but actually closed their mind to the possibility of other ways of approaching situations?

If someone has something important happening in their life, which they want to do their own way; then why should they want outsiders coming in pushing for their own agenda?

This essentially forces the other to deviate from their preferred course of action, otherwise be viewed as “the bad guy” and made to feel guilt for not taking the modified course of action.  How helpful is it to distract someone from accomplishing that which is important to them in the way they have chosen?

Often, the most helpful thing one can do, if one truly wants to help, is to allow the loved one to take the path they have chosen, without assistance, if that’s what they prefer.  It is often best to assume that one is not in need of assistance, unless they have asked for it directly.

The most loving thing one can do for another is to have unconditional acceptance for the other’s choices, without projecting ones own wishes and ideals upon them.

To put it simply, just “let it be” and one will help more than one could have planned or imagined possible.