WE MAKE HELPING TOO COMPLICATED

WE MAKE HELPING TOO COMPLICATED
By
Bill Cottringer

“How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world.” ~Anne Frank

We tend to make things much more complicated than they need to be. I am not sure why we do this. Maybe out of boredom and wanting more of a challenge? Maybe we are convinced we have to reinvent every new wheel from brand new blueprints to get it right? Or maybe we thing that outcomes aren’t any good unless we have our own personal signature on them? Or maybe all the above?

People in the trenches are too busy actually helping others to have the time to talk about it or explain what is involved. But one Katrina rescue worker I recently heard speak at an Episcopal Convention on “radical hospitality” summarized helping with no wasted words:

1. Find people to help.
2. Help them.

Is it really that easy? Yes. Of course any advice-giving regulatory agencies of the government would argue forever that it takes several years of completing graduate degrees in college, dissertations and internships to avoid all the possible unhelpful means and ends that can pop up in the helping professions.

Actually, I am probably not the only one who has questioned the value of my own credentials, once I got past the pride of getting them! After all, isn’t that what the whole self-help movement is all about?

When we let go of what we think we know from our academic training about how to be most helpful in helping others overcome failure, unhappiness, turmoil and all the many obstacles that contribute to these ways of being unwell, what’s left is what is most valuable. And this is having the most optimistic attitude about what we are doing and the undying passion to use our intrinsically-motivated spirit to accumulate and communicate understanding, acceptance and love.

Schools can teach why we should learn how to apply these three things, but not how to actually do them. That is because you have to really want to for all the right reasons and then be patient for life to be the teacher outside the classroom.

The more time we take and effort we make to understand, accept and love other people, especially when we don’t feel like it, the better helpers of others we become. And, the more successful we get in this simple helping equation, the more we understand, accept and love ourselves, and reap the abundance benefits from that progress.

Find people to help and help them. Quite simple. Why make it more complicated?

William Cottringer, Ph.D. is President of Puget Sound Security in Bellevue, WA and also a business and personal success coach, sport psychologist, photographer and writer living on the river and in the mountains of North Bend. He is author of several business and self-development books, including, The Prosperity Zone, Getting More By Doing Less, You Can Have Your Cheese & Eat It Too, The Bow-Wow Secrets, Do What Matters Most, “P” Point Management, and Reality Repair Rx coming shortly. He can be contacted with comments or questions at 425 454-5011 or bcottringer@pssp.net