This idea is making *my* head hurt. How can helping someone harm them? And who’s responsibility is that pain?
If only it were easy to break down, there wouldn’t be Letters for Zerrius.
We already touched on that sometimes offering help, in a work setting, is preventing letting someone fail and grow. You said that to me years ago. Sometimes, you have to let someone fail even if you could have prevented the failure. It helps them become stronger and more capable even if they suffer from it.
I actually said that to BigOne the other day about emotions. There is no joy without pain. And I know, as a mother, it is hard for me to let one of the kids have pain. So I am keeping them from joy? Maybe. It is a journey for all parents and there is no right place between protecting your children and letting them be their own person[1].
However, sometimes trying to help someone causes them pain. And the next question is – who’s fault is it if an offer of help causes pain? Can we avoid the pain even if the help isn’t wanted?
Case Study 1: Chocolate
I remember watching the television show, Homefront, many years ago. My older sister loved that show. I admit, post World War II clothes have a certain attraction[2]. Anyway, in one episode I remember the guy who was supposed to get married when he got home and brought home an English chippie as a wife instead was telling about when he entered the concentration camps[3]. He and his fellow soldiers found some of the children who were starving. They gave the children chocolate. The children died[4].
The children died.
The children died because a well-meaning but uninformed person who had just conquered their captures gave them chocolate. This is a horrifying example of unintended consequences and how help can turn to tragedy.
Case Study 2: Loans between lovers
If I have something, and you want the thing I have, is it helpful for me to loan it to you? Is it helpful for you to borrow it from me?
Maybe.
In fact, it depends on many things. How much does it mean to me? How much benefit will you get out of it? Will I wish I were being compensated for the benefit you gain?
Shall we consider money? Let’s have a pile of money I am not using[5]. You need to buy something. The bank wants to charge you 10% interest. The bank pays me 1% interest. Is it helpful to you for me to loan you the money? Did you ask me to loan you the money?
It may not hurt me to loan you the money, but there is risk: a risk you will not pay me back and a risk that I will demand the money back before you are able to pay.
Case Study 3: Giving a gift the receiver cannot handle
I know someone who needed to help two of his children. His daughter was getting a divorce and needed the house to sell for there to be a settlement. His son had a wife and young child and needed a place to live. This kind patriarch bought the house from the daughter and shared a mortgage with the son.
This house doesn’t exist anymore. It fell apart from lack of maintenance, and the mortgaged stopped being paid when the patriarch died.
Case study 3 is particularly interesting to me because it was the first thing I learned about gifts. If you give a gift that puts an obligation on the receiver, you are controlling how they use their assets. If I invite you to have dinner with me, I will determine what you eat. If I give you a car, I will determine that you need to buy gas to use said car. If I give you something you can’t afford to maintain, and it falls apart and is ruined, is that your fault or my fault?
It would seem, from the above discussion, perhaps we should never help another person. If helping can go bad, why do we try to help people outside our own intimate family?
We do it to connect. To interact. To spark friendship and community. We, as humans, I believe want to help others because we are driven to not only be selfish but also celebrate bounty by appreciating the gifts we have received… and pass them on.
What about the fall out? The consequences? The risks?
Humans need to take risks. One cannot always be conserving resources[6]. Creativity, curiosity and sometimes just a little hint of mischief drives us to reach out for something or someone new[7].
The Case Studies contain warnings. Intent is of the helper is not enough. Helping can have a dark side of unintended consequences especially if the receiver of your help, your gift, your kindness is not seeing what you offer to be a kindness. If there is no commonality between your world view, and if there is no intimacy to understand how the help will benefit, the pitfall is a trap where you will be punished for your help.
And maybe that is ok.
Am I really saying that you shouldn’t help people? Of course not.
But. Actions have consequences. Even if those actions were meant with good intentions and cost you something, you still have a responsibility. How you deal with that responsibility is up to you.
[1] Yes, I see it. Using their in that way is using a plural pronoun with a singular subject. Grammar changes. We have been over that already. J
[2] I am not sure I am actually interested in having stocking seems, but there is a certain glamour to them.
[3] In honestly, I am just telling the story as I remember it. So if this isn’t how it happened, well… sorry.
[4] My editor (Husband) said I had to explain that the chocolate wasn’t poisoned. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refeeding_syndrome
[5] As if there were a thing!
[6] See, “Words Hard (Part I)”
[7] There is another letter coming on the issue of “rational choice” as defined by economists.