Heard a radio interview last two nights about a lady starting some awareness campaigns about children fatal sickness and charitable activities. She pointed out something which is extremely valid and a great reminder - We will only be helpful, if we are rendering the kind of "help" required by the needy.
She gave an example of a dying child at his final stage of cancer: We are not really being helpful if we give him loads of toys or money; perhaps what he really needs are care and company during his most frightful and final part of the journey?
This reminded me of the recent Tsunami when millions of caring folks had instantly donated -besides money - food, clothes and many other stuff. I heard that the charity organizations had had too many clothes and toys donations till they had to turn down (some people were like spring cleaning out stuff that they didn't need, geezz). My mum who had heard all about that had waited for TV announcement about the kind of items the victims really required and at the end, we sent some milk powder, milo, canned food and blankets etc as advised.
My grandpa is another good example - he made us feel so unhelpful every time we tried to help - we always like to help him walk or go up the steps by trying to support him, we even brilliantly suggested getting him a walking stick. What we often got in return was grandpa telling us he can walk by himself, and we could almost see the flash of insult on his face, sometimes.
How often do we try to help people around us with the most sincere and well planned attempts? But, do we always know or try to find out whether the help we offered was adequate, appropriate or even pertinent to the person? Leave alone whether the "help" given had caused any inconvenience, discomfort or even insults. Like the Chinese saying “越帮，越忙”.
Sometimes it's not about how we feel towards helping, the more important point is how the person we intend to help will feel upon receiving our "help". Our parents had forever tried to "help" us; they help us grow up, help us with planning our lives and help us to choose... I am truly grateful towards the sacrifices my mum had made, but honestly, I don't always feel great towards the "help" she offered me sometimes.
So, do me a favour the next time when I tried to render you my unhelpful help - tell me off please!
3 comments:
sounds like you have an issue... :-) yea, it's hard to please everyone. no matter how sincere we are, some people just dont know how to appreciate.
haha... no lah, I don't have any issue... my grandpa not staying with me anymore hence no need to "help" him with anything. I just feel that sometimes we are so into wanting to help someone that we had not think about whether we are really being helpful, but in fact, we are creating more problems for the person we wanted to help. I remember hearing from one of the orphanage saying that they are having too many toys, so it's not a really good help by donating more toys, for instance.
Ooo.. what triggered this discussion ah??? Something that i have missed??
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