Sometimes Helping Means Doing Nothing

When we see someone suffering, the desire to assist them is an almost automatic action. However, and despite it may seem contradictory, sometimes helping means doing nothing. What are the implications of this statement?

Consider, for example, those cases where, by providing support, we have made the situation worse. By meddling, the course of events has changed and the end result has been altered.

So staying out, albeit close, is often a healthy alternative. In this way, we will be helping more than we think. If you want to delve into this question, keep reading. We will tell you more slowly.

Sometimes helping means doing nothing

A fable tells that once a man found a butterfly cocoon lying in the middle of the road and took it home to protect it. He put it to safety, but the next day he noticed that there was a small hole.

When he took a closer look, he saw that the little butterfly was struggling to get out of the cocoon.

The man stayed like that for several hours, watching the butterfly struggle and try to pass through that tiny hole. However, suddenly, he stopped fighting.

It seemed as if it had given up or stuck. The man was very sorry and, with great delicacy, he enlarged the hole so that the butterfly could come out.

Thanks to the good will of the man, the butterfly came out, but it had a swollen body and very small and bent wings.

The man thought this was normal and continued to watch the butterfly while he waited for the swelling to subside and for the insect to spread its wings and fly away. But it was not like that.

The poor butterfly just crawled in circles. It never flew.

Fighting for ourselves is necessary

As the previous story tells, the man offered to help the butterfly in good faith. But he did not know that the butterfly had to overcome that obstacle by itself. If she could do it on her own, the fluids in her body would flow to her wings.

As it was not like that, the problem that seemed to have turned into another major: the butterfly never flew. By making it easy for it to come out early and effortlessly, the natural process was interrupted for the animal’s wings to mature enough.

Thus, the message that this story transmits to us has to do with the help we give when someone does not ask for it. It is an act of kindness to reach out to someone who is suffering or lacks the means when faced with a certain setback. However, it is also important to identify when this assistance is really crucial.

Because each person learns from their own mistakes, the difficulties they overcome and the solutions they reach. For this reason, sometimes it is necessary for everyone to live the experience that corresponds to them, so that they can understand it and be reinforced by it.

It is hard to stay calm when someone close to you is having a hard time, especially if it is a loved one. For example, perhaps that friend requires help with such difficult family circumstances. But more than organizing his existence, the key lies in giving him unconditional support, lending him a shoulder to cry on, listening to him …

A life without obstacles prevents overcoming

It is true that mistakes displease us, that obstacles sometimes stop us or that fears paralyze us. However, all these experiences are part of the learning path that we are going to obtain.

Thus, beyond observing these obstacles as a drag, it may be useful to consider them as an opportunity to improve. Perhaps such challenges are more bearable if we understand them as milestones of improvement in different phases of life.

Each mistake will be a step forward in the face of something we are facing, a step that will push us even higher. Each misstep will put us to the test, leading us to insist again, to change our strategy or even to abandon.

In any case, accepting failures and addressing fears will make us grow and gain confidence in ourselves. For this reason it is essential that everyone go through these battles. Only then will it emerge stronger and with more resources than it already had.

When helping means doing nothing

If others are capable of doing something on their own, why deprive them of that experience?

Giving support to those around us is a nice act of generosity, but remember: sometimes helping means doing nothing …