The Help Paradox

By Rajesh Setty on Sun 04 May 2008, 6:14 PM - 7 Comments

It seems like there is a simple solution to the help problem.

A lot of people in the world want help.

A lot of people in the world can provide help.

So why not match the everyone that needs help with everyone that can provide that help and resolve this whole thing once for all.

Everyone wishes it was that easy!

Here are some basic problems with the scenario

Let’s take the category of those who want help. They can be categorized into many buckets. Here are some of them:

1. Those who don’t know they need help
2. Those who refuse to get help
3. Those who know they need help but are shy to ask for it
4. Those who know they need help but can’t pay for it.
5. Those who are arrogant
6. Those who know they need help and feel entitled to it.
7. Those who are clueless
8. Those who can’t believe that EVEN they need help.
9. Those who can’t ACCEPT help from others

Now let us look at the category of those who have this help. They can be categorized into many buckets. Here are some of them:

1. Those who don’t know they have the capacity to help.
2. Those who don’t think they are ready to help (yet)
3. Those that are VERY busy.
4. Those who get lots of help requests and don’t know where to start.
5. Those who don’t know how to help.
6. Those who have given up helping because they helped some “Not So Grateful” people in the past
7. Those who are clueless
8. Those who can’t believe that EVEN they can help
9. Those who DON’T want to help others

You see – some people want help and some people have help. But matchmaking these two people is difficult.

In reality, I think the two categories of people are:

a) Those who WANT help and
b) Those who WANT MORE help

Yes, those are simply the two categories. Why? Simply because everyone needs help.

Now, if you are in the category where you WANT MORE HELP, then you have to get it from people who just WANT help and they may not want to help you unless while fulfilling your help request, they are moving towards fulfilling their own need for help.

So next time you WANT MORE HELP and you have to get it, please make sure that the person who is giving that help also NEEDS HELP. Providing help to you has to be in alignment with fulfilling that person’s own need for help. It can be as simple as you adequately compensating the other person for that help.

Now, if you don’t have something to offer back to the other person who is providing help, please go back to your drawing board and start thinking!

Related Articles:

• The Paradox of Learning (example of Time Management)
• The Paradox of Experience
• 2008 Quought for the Day #9 – Michael Weissman
• Ways to distinguish yourself – #5 Set the right expectations

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