Are you always ready to help your friends, delve into their problems, recharge your energy? And what happens to you after such recharging? Blogger Janet Bertholus gives advice to an optimist on how to get friends out of the “swamp” and not fall into the quagmire yourself.
“I am here to help others. Why the hell everyone else is here, I don’t know.” So said Wystan Auden, the famous American poet.
I’m an optimist – that is, a person who finds almost everything encouraging. For example, if a crocodile bites off an optimist’s hand, he will say: “It’s not so bad: at least it’s clear to everyone now that I’m left-handed.”
That is why people come to me to recharge their batteries, to lighten a heavy burden, to share their problems. And I’m only happy about it, but there is one problem: I raise their morale – they lower mine.
Deeper down the rabbit hole
Not too long ago, I was helping a friend whose business was failing.
I can do it, I thought to myself, it’s not that hard. I myself went through this seven years ago.”
We talked with her about collectors, debts, empty bank accounts and dishonest partners – and after a couple of hours I felt like I was falling into some kind of bottomless rabbit hole. But still, I managed to mutter a few phrases that could help her.
“You know, I feel much better now,” she said. That’s all I remember. All the way home, I drove with a terrible headache, and before my eyes, again and again, pictures of my own past arose.
And the optimist in me desperately shouted: “Ah! My hand! Where is my hand?
Let’s pause in words
We are always ready to listen to friends when they talk about their problems. After all, we ourselves have been in their place so many times, pouring out our bitterness. But maybe we are sometimes too talkative?
I remember a wise man who once upon a time, twenty years ago, listened carefully to my story and helped me out of despair.
“We will not talk about the same thing several times,” he said, to my considerable disappointment. I remember how angry I was with him for this insensitivity. I already tuned in to a detailed story about my sorrows and did not want to miss a single detail!
And he listened to my story completely. Once.
He then said, “Do you think you will find solutions to problems by talking about them? But the problem itself will not help to find the answer. The memory of the problem prevents us from moving on, and I don’t want to be stuck here with you.”
You know what they say to those who want to save a drowning man: be careful that he does not pull you along.
He wasn’t insensitive, he just knew how sticky dirt can be when you bring it to life with words.
When you talk about a problem, you give it power.
And he did not want us to him – and I, and he following me – over and over again lost heart. Under no circumstances. Even when it comes to matters of love.
And then, if he decided to go down with me into the depths of my problem, I would not be here now.
I needed to keep his head above the surface so that he could throw me a rope when I started to go down and indicate the direction in which to swim. You know what they say to those who want to save a drowning man: be careful that he does not pull you along.
Therefore, my advice to an optimist who loves to help friends is to listen and talk about the problem – but briefly. Looking for a way out. Don’t let it stick to your boots.
About the author: Janet Bertholus is a blogger.