Huh? What?
Yep, I can see you all already, through the internet even, head shaking, face scrunched up, like ‘IreneB, are you OK? This sounds bloody awful? I wasn’t raised that way!’ I get it. Neither was I. But times they are a changing… to quote Bob Dylan.
Get with it.
Be less helpful. It sounds and feels hella mean, like I’m actively working to sway the good people of the world into becoming the terrible ones. The ones who not only watch but take pleasure in watching others struggle, complete with a side of hot, buttery popcorn as they do it.
No. I still and will always believe in kindness. I believe in showing up for the people I love, just as much as helping strangers. I touched a little on this before, when I wrote about the difference between nice and kind, and me not remotely being a fan of nice. Nice is some surface-level shit. A performance for others. Kind is deeper, intentional, selfless, not selfish. It doesn’t care who’s watching, only that the outcome is positive for the person receiving it. I’m Team Kind all day long.
What I’m questioning is the automatic part of being helpful. Ask yourself this: if there’s a problem within a 50-foot radius of you, does your brain immediately go to, “Oh, I can fix that!” Someone needs something? “Oh, I have one!” Someone doesn’t understand something? “Here, let me show you!” When someone, insert a face if you need to for effect, has a problem, are you without hesitation already starting to construct, or worse, are ready to deliver the solution, complete with detailed steps… and maybe before they’ve finished fully explaining it?
What is it in you that triggers that?
I’m here to say pause. Take a breath, a beat, back step, whatever. And honestly, girl, first and foremost, sit the heck down.
Helpful Isn’t a Reflex, It’s a Choice
And a choice you make wisely.
I’m a helper. My hands are up; I own it. And so are the majority of my friends, the people I surround myself with. Like attracts like, right? But that hasn’t always worked out in my favor. And to be clear, I wasn’t ever looking for praise with my help or support, but I for damn sure wasn’t looking for a scolding or extra BS work, either.
Think on the last time you genuinely provided some support and it backfired on you, royally. Did you jump in too soon? Offer help and support to someone who should never have received it in the first place? Was your help met with anger, suspicion, or dismissal, when it was 100% correct? I bet when you stopped for a minute, or on your long walk to gather yourself, you were like, “Why am I doing this?” Why the hell am I out here volunteering myself, my time, and know-how like I’m the designated emergency response team… and for a problem that isn’t even mine?
Reflection is a bitch. She means well. Is there to teach and correct us, but still.
It was too many repeat situations like these, for me anyway, that led me to adopt my many pauses. Where you start to see that it isn’t always about being helpful, immediately. Sometimes it’s about being needed or asked. Other times, and I’m witnessing more of these, it’s just about listening. Then making a determination to see how your advice, help, support will be taken, or if it’s even needed from you, specifically.
Ask yourself
- Is there another person or option that’s better suited?
- Should you help?
- Do you even want to help?
And all of those are very different things. So when my brain automatically sees a solvable problem and it goes to, “I know the answer,” or “I can solve that,” I still pause. Wait to hear the opinions and suggestions from others, all to see how the requester typically receives feedback. That now tells me everything.
Case in point: At an old job of mine, one of the upper-level managers would drive folks mad with how they dealt with help and support. In one instance, said manager missed providing a recap for a client, one that the client would use to give kudos to the team members they didn’t work with directly. So when a team member excelled at a task, the client wouldn’t easily remember who they were. Providing this write-up was important for our client.
So when another team member reminded the manager about this important task, instead of the manager expressing a “Phew! Good catch!”, they lashed out at them. As if the late reminder was the issue, not that the manager had completely forgotten this client deliverable.
What do you think the outcome was then? People learned to stay silent… and shit just got messier until the manager was moved to another team.
So yeah, being helpful can absolutely backfire on you.
The Good Girl Gets Good at Giving
Say that five times fast, then take a shot.
I know a lot of us were raised with the idea that being a good human, and more to the point a good woman, means being useful to others. Yet somehow that translated into being overly accommodating, being generous, being thoughtful, and boom, being someone’s bitch. And if you’re particularly good at it, well, others can sniff that on you a mile away. Tell you how wonderful you are and before you know it, you’ve become the person everybody knows they can count on. Captain Save-A-Ho, I believe, is the internet definition.
Ergo: Someone’s bitch, for us Gen Xers.
Now while I’ve done plenty of dumb shit in my many years on earth. Made some foolish moves, and regretful choices, I’m still nobody’s bitch. Never did I fully bend over backwards for randoms. There’s no giving up my paid-for aisle seat on a plane for no one. Miss me with that shit and continue to suffer in the middle seat. Or giving away my last of anything only to then put myself in a fucked-up situation, that’s not helpful to anyone.
But kindness is a part of who I am, I love it, and I’m not giving that up for anything. I’m just continuing to direct it where it makes the best sense, for me, for them, and again, for me. Help and support for my loved ones who would jump oceans to support me won’t miss a beat, and it’s not because it’s tit-for-tat, the whole “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours,” I’m not one to keep score like that. But automatically being helpful in every situation is bloody exhausting. So maybe the good girl in you doesn’t need to go back in her box, she just needs to practice being more intentional about where she chooses to sacrifice, share and give. Because all-day-every-day-ain’t it, babe.
I Don’t Always Need to Be the Solution
If I even have the solution that is.
In fact, everybody does not necessarily want my solution. Sometimes people just want to complain. Sometimes they want to vent, or want you to cosign on their situation with a, “Damn that sucks, I’m sorry,” and be allowed to just figure it out for themselves. So shove that three-steps ahead, color-coded plan, with two alternatives, and a backup option, back under ya bum for another day.
Sometimes the most helpful thing I can do, and this goes for you too, is to mind your damn business. Or play a little dumb and pause. And sometimes you just have to let something be. Let something fall. Let the mess belong to the person who made it.
