All of us would like to relieve troubles and pains that people have. It’s natural. Computer experts might put it this way: we are hard-wired to do whatever we can to protect and care for those that we have relationships with, whether it’s a coworker, friend or family member. We don’t want them to suffer.
But what sometimes happens is that in attempts to ease pain, solve problems, eliminate troubles and prevent suffering we end up rescuing. The more help I provide the more helpless its recipients become. There’s a big difference between a rescuer’s help and a non-rescuer’s assistance.
If someone is drowning, for example, you rescue him, you drag him out of the water. But occasions when people need such help are few. On the other hand, people frequently need assistance, which is doing something with someone.
I use the terms help and assist interchangeably but they don’t mean the same thing.
Just keep in mind that helping and rescuing are really the same thing.
• Rescuing is assuming ownership of other people’s problems.
• Assuming ownership of others’ problems can run the risk of communicating to them you feel they’re incompetent, unable to solve their own problems.
• Being deemed incompetent really, really upsets people.
• Really upset people are difficult to deal with.
• And well-meaning rescuers want to know why others are so very hard to get along with.
People have problems. If someone’s problem, for example a colleague who vapes (smokes)–which she does outside on her breaks, by her car, away from the building—it doesn’t tangibly effect me–it’s clearly her problem. She owns it.
If her behavior does effect me—she vapes near the entrance to the building and I have to smell/breath it when I go outside for some fresh air, then that problem is mine. I own it. That’s the rule. Whoever owns a problem must take action to solve it. It may take the assistance and cooperation others but it’s up to the problem’s owner to get it resolved.
And for those who are familiar with the L.E.T/Gordon Model know the next step after identifying who owns it…why hello there, I-Messages!