Little Black Dress
I recently heard someone use the phrase:
“Being helpful is just control in a party dress.”
To begin with, I wished I had come up with that. It’s brilliant: simple, poignant and tangible. Sometimes, when we think we’re helping someone, we’re actually causing more problems. Our intentions are good, but the results aren’t always in line with what we hoped would be the outcome when we decided to get involved.
Then there are those times when our intentions are actually self-serving. We help, not because we can (or need to), but because it makes us feel good—and we’re not necessarily interested in the outcome. We got what we needed out of the situation, and well—the rest is ‘out of our control.’ And then there are those times when we help because we care, but we also have a desired expectation. Furthermore, having an expectation implies a desire to control. This expectation can be a desire for praise for our efforts, or for the person we’re helping to follow our advice because we know best. But do we really?