DAILY CHOICE: Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Help vs. Hurt

REFLECTION:

On the surface, the decision whether to help or hurt seems remarkably clear cut. Yet, it is never as easy as it seems. First you need to recognize that someone needs help. What will be required to be effective and in what order comes next. Then collaboration, marshalling others skills to shore up those you may lack. Helping frequently requires patience and persistence. Hurting is much more immediate and easy to deliver. It only takes one person to begin to tear down, but usually multiple people, cooperating and working in concert to build up. Still helping is magnetic and partners have difficulty resisting the urge to chip in and contribute. And frequently the helper who began it all, can step back and enjoy the fact that her help has spread to the helpers themselves who can’t recall who was there first because each is too involved. If you want to help, there’s always an opportunity as long as you’re not too selective. In the end, each time you reach out, others reach back, forming you and drawing out of you a reservoir of strength and goodness.

MUSES:

The meaning of good and bad, of better or worse, is simply helping or hurting.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Theodore Roosevelt

Any jackass can kick down a barn, but it takes a good carpenter to build one.
Sam Rayburn

Make happy those who are near, and those who are far will come.
Chinese proverb

As for the best leaders, the people do not notice their existence. The next best, the people honour and praise. The next, the people fear, and the next the people hate. When the best leader’s work is done, the people say, ‘we did it ourselves!’
Lao-Tzu

I am part of all that I have met.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson