While there has been plenty written in present days about the ongoing tragedy in the Gulf coast area and New Orleans (not to mention the tragedy going on in Washington DC), and I certainly don't need to add to the row, I found something I wrote a number of months ago that seems apropos. Here it is, with a bit of added material to bring it up to date.
Why do we have such a strange relationship with offering "help"? Self-sufficient is the rule of the day, anything less is seen as weakness of character. Pull yourself up by the boot strings, sink or swim, these ideas are ingrained in the American Way at this point. I have to agree with them to a certain extent, I'm a very independent person who feels like success comes from hard work and dedication. But, when someone really is in need we still many times find excuses not to help, or even worse treat the person like they have done something wrong. We seem to believe that if you do something wrong you will need help, ergo if you need help you've done something wrong. It perhaps works one way, but any Logic 101 class, or a bit of common sense, will tell you it doesn't always work the other way. The problem is we start to ask ourselves "Do we really need to help someone who has done something wrong? It's their own fault that they're in the state they are, they should have been able to take care of themselves." We rationalize our withholding of help and sleep fine at night.
A friend of mine from college killed himself last Spring, and needless to say I was very affected by it. I have had some run-ins with suicide before, but no one I knew as a friend. I had no idea he was battling with some manic depressive issues, was on and off medication, etc.etc., though we were admittedly had fallen out of contact and no longer lived in the same state. He was in Montana when it happened and I was in Seattle, but suddenly everyone out there was saying "I wish I would have known, I would have helped...", and I was certainly thinking the same thing. Is it guilt? Is it knowing it’s too late to offer help that we suddenly DO start to offer it? Would our help been enough in the end? Blame is easy to throw, but the reality is that blame and truth rarely have much in common. In the case of my friend we must chalk it up as tragedy, and hope to do better next time and move on.
Perhaps we can move on to the Gulf. Why does it take so much DEATH for us to offer the help we posses? The truth about the mismanagement of the levee repair, FEMA, the federal government, etc., is coming out and people are outraged, but it's TOO LATE PEOPLE. Who in their right mind let things get to the point they did? The point where an entire major city in the United States of America is under water, completely vacated, and thousands of people are dead. We didn't do what we could to have made that city safe. How many other things out there have we passed over, for monetary reasons or base reasons of pride? I think the list would be long, but let's think more about the personal, individual aspect of the issue. How many people are without health care? How many people are being used as expendable expenses of their employers' instead of valuable assets to their company? How many people suffer alone at home with any number of problems they don't feel that they can talk about because they may be seen as weak, broken, or unable to help themselves? The number makes me ill, and very sad.
My last complaint on the subject is a personal one. I once said to someone I know that I "wanted to help people," to which he responded "Who are you to think you can 'help' anyone? Help yourself, leave other people alone, they don't need you offering your 'help'." He saw offering help as a sign of arrogance.... "I'm so much better than you, let me help you!" I guess I can see the insane logic, but it terrifies me. So my friend is dead and a city is underwater, my last worry is coming off as arrogant, I'd rather try and help. If more people in the world and in white houses truly had an interest in helping instead of worrying about arrogance or lack of self sufficiency I believe the world would be different, perhaps even better.
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