If you want to help people, it’s worth noting that you generally have to work with people to do it. And people can be prickly and messy and unpredictable and ungrateful. So there’s that. But then, they can also embrace the help, benefit from it, and become perpetually thankful to you for it. So there’s that, too. And you’re going to get both—if you’re lucky—probably with less of the latter than of the former.
Having said that, though, let me point out that it’s a matter of degrees. While some will go on thanking you for years for the help you gave, most others who are thankful, and who maintain a generally positive view of you because of it, won’t be so easy to read about it all. If you’re conditioned by the unthankful ones, you might assume that the silent ones are also unthankful, but in many cases, you’ll be wrong.
Of course, it’s always a good question: Why do you want to help people? Is it just to win friends and fans for yourself? Or is it to help them? (It can certainly be some of each, mind you!) And here’s another good question: For those who will be thankful for your help, how many of the unthankful ones are you willing to deal with?
It can certainly become a self-sacrificing ordeal. And sometimes, it seems like the unthankful ones are coming out of the woodwork—piling up all at once, as if it were a coordinated attack! But still, there is the fact that you have tried, and that you have indeed made a difference to some. And you can decide to learn from it all, or to be bitter about the parts that didn’t go well.
Life is hard sometimes. So are people. I am certainly the better for those who have dared to help me. How, then, can I not try to help others?
