How do I help?
(One Day at a Time)
Of course I am obligated, by compassion and a common humanity, to help others. But this does not mean I should do for them what they ought to do for themselves. I have no right to deprive anyone else of the challenge to meet his own responsibility. Although mutual dependence is one of the comforts and rewards of marriage, each partner must do his own job, carry his own share of the burden. If he fails in his duties, my assuming them will only weaken his will to accept his share of the responsibility.
How can I best help the people in my life? By not interfering when he gets into difficulties. I must detach myself from his shortcomings, neither making up for them nor criticizing them. Let me learn to play my own role, and leave his to him. If he fails in it, the failure is not mine, no mater what others may think or say about it.
“For though we are made especially for the sake of one another,
still each of us has his own tasks. Otherwise another’s faults
would harm me, which God has not willed, in order that my
happiness may not depend on another.
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