“Sometimes, the most loving act is stepping back, preserving your energy for those genuinely seeking light rather than drowning yourself in someone else’s darkness.” ~ Unknown
Life is often like one of those mastery learning programs where you keep taking the same test again and again until you achieve the required grade. Unfortunately, life rarely offers test prep or warnings that you’re taking the test again, you just find yourself in the middle of it.
As an adult, one of the hardest life lessons I’ve ever had to learn is that you can’t help those who won’t (not can’t, won’t, there’s a difference) help themselves. You can’t help someone out of addiction, poverty, depression, an abusive relationship, or delusional thinking unless they actually want to do the work to change. That’s really hard, especially when the person who needs help is someone you care about and feel responsible for.
This obligatory urge to offer aid and support, even when it’s to our own detriment, stems from a long-held belief that it is our Christian duty and responsibility to be “the good Samaritan” and the one who “turns the other cheek” and the one who “lays down his life for a friend.” None of that is wrong or bad, but I fear we skipped over some of the lesson (hence the reason so many of us keep taking the same test).
We can offer help, and should when possible, but being a helper doesn’t give us the authority to override someone else’s free will. Even God doesn’t override free will, no matter how hard we pray.
We offer our help, advice, suggestions, kindness, resources, and a “better way to live” (at least in our own opinion), and then we find ourselves hurt, disappointed and resentful when the person we’ve tried to assist goes their own way. So we get loud, and angry, and we try to force the issue, and the next thing we know, we’ve failed the test again.
It’s all tied up in our ego, this urge to help, to rescue, to save someone from their own worst instincts, and that’s part of the reason it’s so painful to let it go. It’s not just losing the person, it’s losing a part of yourself you took pride in.
The next time you feel that urge to put on your superhero cape and swoop in to rescue someone, maybe ask what they’re willing to do for themselves. If they have no answer, that is your answer. Don’t take the test again.
