How Do I Balance My Need to Help with What I Can Actually Do?

I need to recognize and accept what I do, don’t, and can’t control.Photo by Inspa Makers on Unsplash

I’m trying to wrap my head around my own thoughts. Between what’s in my head and the information I take in from the world without, there’s a lot there to process.

Lately, I’ve been feeling an increasing sense of disconnect. It’s like I’m present, doing my thing, but also drifting. Why? Because the state of the collective consciousness is so scattered and so uncertain, it’s hard to ignore when it’s practically screaming.

No matter how much I limit my intake of the various news from the world without, it’s still there. And I know there’s not a fucking thing I can do about it.

All I can do is strive to live my own life to the best of my ability. I know that I’m incredibly fortunate on multiple levels and work hard not to take that for granted. That, unfortunately, comes with a degree of guilt and shame.

Why? Because my struggles are entirely intangible and in my head. I know that they’re no less valid than those who have physical and tangible struggles. But I still feel bad when I see others I care about enduring more concrete challenges.

I’m a natural helper

In the medieval reenactment society that is my hobby (and much of my social life), I’ve been awarded for doing service. It’s in my nature to help people, teach people, open people to potential, possibilities, and the like. I strive not to lead, but to guide.

As a child, after my parents’ divorce, I started therapy. One thing I learned was that the best therapists didn’t tell me things but instead asked the right questions to get me to ask and seek answers to those things on my own. I’ve always found the best therapists are guides like that.

In my everyday life, I regularly hold doors, allow people with fewer items than I have in front of me in check-out lines, and give directions to strangers. I’m a natural helper.

When I see people struggling with things, I deeply desire to help if I can. Yet, faced with a fear-based and increasingly unreasonable collective consciousness, I’m finding myself more and more at a loss for what I can do.

Which leads to today’s question. How do I balance my need to help with what I can actually do?

Photo by Jeremy Bishop on UnsplashThe balance is within me

It is very, very hard to watch what’s going on in the world and, as a natural helper, not desire to do something about it. Yet, the truth is, there’s not a damned thing I can do in the present.

I can’t make anyone who wants to stick it to the liberals understand how that also hurts them. There’s nothing I can do to make people understand that being “woke” is far better than being asleep and under the control of someone else. And it’s infuriating because it’s beyond logic, reason, and not-so-common sense.

Recognizing this, however, opens me to choices and decisions for what I can do. And that comes down to being my most genuine self. What I can do is keep offering to help people I come in contact with, as I’m naturally inclined to do.

I must also accept that I can’t do jack shit about the Big Picture bullshit. I can’t make our so-called leaders stop harming people, can’t wake anyone up who isn’t willing to wake up, and can’t show people who believe the lies that they are lies.

Also, I won’t run away or stop resisting what I can resist in any generative, useful way. But I need to recognize, acknowledge, and work with what I can actually do rather than lament what I can’t. That’s where the balance is to be found.

Balance is a mindful choice

Nobody but me is in my head, heart, or soul. Ergo, only I can choose how to find and make the balance between my need to help and what I can do.

It’s up to me to choose to stop letting what I can’t control get to me. Only I can recognize and acknowledge it, then balance where I go from there.

That doesn’t make this any less infuriating and frustrating. But it opens me to employ greater active conscious awareness – mindfulness – in the face of this mad, mad, mad world.

This is not a choice for ignorance. Knowledge is power, and more than that, knowledge is empowerment. But the balance between awareness and overwhelm is a blurry line I often need to squint to recognize. Yet doing so is how I can maintain my calm, balance my need to help with what I can actually do, and allow me to find and/or create new opportunities.

I need to recognize and accept what I do, don’t, and can’t control. That starts by being aware of my own thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions. That isn’t selfish, it’s self-awareness. Being self-aware is how I can make choices and decisions that can do me good while also being helpful and good for others.

So that’s where I’m at. Thanks for reading my rambling thoughts. How do you balance what you desire to do with what you can do?

This is the seventh-hundred-thirteenth (713) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.

I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.

Thank you for joining me. Feel free to repost and share this.

The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.

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