Your Daily Advice

[Kazooie]

It takes a man to acknowledge his faults, but a bigger one to remedy them.

 

[sm4him]

^^^ It sure would be nice to use that excuse with my toddler. But unfortunately compassion and love never come with conditions.

:scratch: True enough. But "help" does. I can be unconditionally compassionate and loving and still utterly unable to HELP someone who won't accept help.

You can accept help without being able to help yourself, and you can help others who are unable to help themselves. My kid is a perfect example. Because he has some developmental and cognitive disabilities, it's pretty impossible for him to follow directions. He can't "help me help him" in any way to get ready for the day, even though he might want to go to the park, to school, or whatever. Yeah. It's frustrating, but I still am *able* to help him get dressed and stay focused, even if he is unable to really "do his part".

We all have our shortcomings, and just because we assume someone is capable of doing something doesn't mean that they are. I hear this "I can't help you unless you help yourself" often by organizations which genuinely want to help the homeless. They use this to place the blame of their limited resources onto the people they are trying to help, as a means to justify not being able to help everyone - and often times they truly can't. But if resources were infinite, wouldn't these organizations not to house and feed everyone no matter how futile the effort of rehabilitating a good portion into so-called 'productive' members of society? I'd like to hope so.

Of course sometimes help does more harm than good, but I think that's a different issue than not being able to help someone - in fact, I'd say such approaches are not "helping" at all.

But so long as you love someone, you can always help them - even if their is no chance that that person will ever be able to help themselves.

First, let's be clear:

The Mork quote I used was, as I stated originally, specifically appropriate *in this instance* and was not meant as my broad statement of how "help" can, or should, work. Not to mention it was just a lighthearted attempt to humorously remind the OP that my opinions still stand.

I'm not sure I can respond adequately to the rest of your thoughts without writing a treatise, and I don't intend to do that here, but I will make a few comments about it:
1. I think we probably largely agree about the "ideal" way to "help" those who need it.

2. Problem is, resources are NOT infinite, and they never will be. Right, wrong or indifferent, it just is what it is, and organizations MUST work within some parameters that are almost ALWAYS far more limited than they'd like. I've worked with trouble/"problem" teens from time to time (though not in any "official" capacity), and I also work with a local organization that tries to help women in some desperate circumstances get the help they truly need--not just a hand out. It is incredibly frustrating to not have the resources--financial, manpower, expertise, etc--to truly HELP everyone who needs it. But it's a fact of life.

3. I think that SOMETIMES "I can't help you if you won't help yourself" IS appropriate. You're right, there are many, MANY instances where it is APPLIED but NOT appropriate--mental illness, developmental issues, SOME (probably many) of the homeless. But you know, I've seen people who COULD help themselves refuse to do it. Heck, I've BEEN one of those people--I suffered most of my adult life with bouts of severe clinical depression; others would try to urge me to get counseling, to seek help, to get on medication. But none of that had any effect until *I* decided to seek the help I needed.
I've worked with some women, who NEED the help, and are offered the help--help to truly get their life to a better place--but they REFUSE it. There are a myriad of perfectly *valid* (to them, where they are at the time) reasons to refuse the help--usually, they believe there are going to be "strings" attached, or they simply no longer have even an ounce of hope that they can change, so they aren't willing to work at change. It's sad--devastating--and it breaks my heart--but no, *I* cannot HELP that person, except to let them REFUSE the help and hope and pray that they are still alive when they come to the point where they ARE willing to accept the help.

I could go on more about that, but I'm trying to draw this to a conclusion and put this thread back on its track.

The point is, I guess, that I was referring to only THIS specific instance here--although granted, even here I don't really KNOW how "able" the individual in question is to "help" themselves by getting help. I can guarantee you that if it were MY kid, they would GET the help they need.

But it's NOT my kid, and honestly, I'm NOT perfect (big shock!!) and my love and concern falls FAR short of unconditional. For my kids, yeah, it's unconditional. For my youth kids at church, and my ladies in the Hand Up program, it's unconditional.
But for perfect strangers I come across on the internet--I gotta admit, I fall short.

And so, perhaps instead of "I can't help you if you won't help yourself" my response would more precisely be that SOMETIMES I *won't* help you if you won't help yourself--if I believe that you DO have the ability to help yourself. It's MY help, and I DO have very limited resources (time AND money) so I guess I get to be the judge of who gets it.


So I guess I wrote a treatise anyway. A very short one.

 

[Kazooie]

You can write a book, but you can't always get someone to read it.

 

[Kazooie]

One is not late, but just behind on the times.

 

[Tuffythepug]

"Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all."
-St. Augustine

My old granddad had a twist on this one. he used to say "It's better to have loved a short girl than never to have loved a tall"

 

[unpopular]

^^ i've always had a midget fascination. there's a really sexy one working at McDonalds....

 

[Kazooie]

Some people just have weird fetishes, and you will never be able to fix them. Donkeys included.

 

[pixmedic]

Some people just have weird fetishes, and you will never be able to fix them. Donkeys included.

pot...kettle...anyone? :mrgreen:

s'cool man, ive seen it all. done most of it. some of it twice.

 

[unpopular]

^^ cake farts?

 

[pixmedic]

^^ cake farts?

i said I tried "most"....not "all"

 

[unpopular]

lmao.

 

[rexbobcat]

B*****s ain't s**t but hoes and tricks.

Real talk.

 

[rexbobcat]

You don't choose the thug life. The thug life chooses you.

 

[rexbobcat]

If you can't twerk it, you can't work it.

 

[o hey tyler]

To the window, to the wall. Until the sweat drips down my balls. - the twins of yin and yang

Fo' fo's I'm tippin', wood grain I'm grippin'. - Michael Jones

Hey hey, hey hey. Smoke weed every day. - Tyrone

There's a lot to learn from modern rap music.