All of These. . .
I had a conversation sometime back with a dear friend about helping fellow colleagues who were having difficulties at work.
It is natural for us (well most of us) to want to lend a hand. We often do the same thing in our daily lives with loved ones or family members. Helping others, however is not always as simple as it may seem. many times helping out requires us to NOT help – to refrain from offering advice, to leave questions unanswered, to let people struggle with problems. Many times our reasons for helping out are based on a shallow and ultimately selfish notion that is concerned with eliminating our own unease rather than truly lending a hand.
Unfortunately this type of help can derail careers, ruin friendships, and sink the ship faster than doing nothing at all.
This type of help is referred to as idiot compassion. It receives this name not because of the people who perform it, but more so because of the type of people that it produces. In other words if we are always saving someone from the experience of failing or the experience of working through a problem then in the end those persons will have no true experience at all, we always SAVED them from it!
We see this type of compassion all around us in our schools and our society, co-workers do not want their teams to fail, parents do not want to set too high a standards for their children, or we accept mediocrity because we do not want anyone to feel left out. When we always save the day we must be careful and ensure we are not saving someone from a valuable experience, that we are not depriving them of one of life’s valuable lessons. It is a tough thing to do, but in the end it is truly a form of “helping out” of being compassionate and allowing someone to have the knowledge they need to move through life. It is only fair that we allow such lessons to take their natural course.
I had a wonderful college teacher who told us on our first day of class to not be afraid to fail in her class, that mistakes were just as much a learning tool as books and technique. It is a beautiful lesson I have carried in my heart ever since.
Have a great day and carry this with you: How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.
Peace and Love, Jim
#allofthese #thedailybuddha
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