Helping Others

Helplessness and pity are among the most painful emotions we can ever feel. To overcome pain, which is a combination of pity for the person suffering and pity for ourselves, we rush to be helpful. This can make us feel better and might even help the object of our concern but we do not ever permit ourselves simply to feel the helplessness and pity that we feel but are forever, 'making better' we damage those who have inspired our sense of responsibility, for we have become the most dangerous person in the world, a person who knows what is best for other people. We want to control everybody and everything. We want to take away from other people their right for self-determination, which includes the right to make mistakes. If we cannot make mistakes we cannot learn. In assuming the responsibility for other which is rightly theirs, we are trying to stop them from changing.