Not My Monkey

​Everyone has a backpack to carry and the only time you should offer support is when their backpack is way too heavy. Stepping in to take their normal backpack as an act of “love” is damaging. “But they need my steadying hand!” While they walk a little lighter and a little freer, none the wiser to his own unused strength. This becomes a fine arrangement at first glance but a trap for both.

The problem with such a habit is that before long, neither of you knows how to stand upright on your own two feet.  You are confused by where your backbone ends and his begins. You are smashed by weight that isn’t yours and the other guy’s muscles are atrophied.  

There is a pretty big difference between being helpful and making it about you. Do you ever grab someone’s problem and make it your own? Isn’t that being empathetic? Isn’t that the loving thing to do?

Nope.

Trying hard to control the outcomes for someone else is classic codependency, first cousin to selfishness, and is double-dipped in resentment.

Not my monkey, not my circus…