
Why I Stopped Helping People and You Should Too - fforflo
https://medium.com/life-tips/why-i-stopped-helping-people-and-you-should-too-36d09d04784c#.xibycychx
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heptathorp
The reason you don't give unsolicited advice is not because people don't
deserve it (points 1 & 2 in the article) but because if they didn't ask for it
then they probably aren't prepared to act on your advice; or they don't view
the subject of your advice as a problem; or they are already fully aware of
your advice but a bigger issue is blocking them; or due to some other
information that you don't have so you don't fully understand their problem
and they resent your assumptions about their problem.

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Mz
I strongly suspect this is a gendered issue. The author is a woman. I am a
woman. I have watched men be helpful to someone and have it come back to them
as a professional connection. When I do the same thing, I seem to mostly get
one of three responses: 1) romantic interest 2) the expectation that I should
be helpful for free because, I guess, I am supposed to _care_ about everyone
in a motherly way (and most of the world seems to ascribe to an abusive Giving
Tree mental model of motherhood) or 3) people stop speaking to me (I have
opinions about some of the reasons for that, but this is not the place for
that).

What I never seem able to establish is a "I scratch your back, you scratch my
back" expectation of tit for tat professionally. The thoughts expressed in
this article may not apply so much if you are male. Male helpfulness seems to
be received differently in the business world than female helpfulness. For
women reading this article, my opinion is that she makes some useful points,
but it is probably incomplete without analyzing the role that gender plays
here, which the article does not do.

~~~
Grishnakh
>When I do the same thing, I seem to mostly get one of three responses: 1)
romantic interest

I'll bet a LOT of men wish that they'd receive some romantic interest when
they're helpful to people, even if it means they have to decline some of it. I
think it kinda says something that men pretty much never get any romantic
interest (they always have to initiate it, even in this supposed age of gender
equality), and that women complain about men showing romantic interest, but
men doing this is precisely the _only_ way they're ever going to have a
romantic relationship because women never show romantic interest themselves.
Women demand for men to always be the initiators, but then complain when men
initiate (presumably because it's not the men they're interested in). Maybe if
there were a lot more equity in romantic initiation, this wouldn't be such a
problem.

>3) people stop speaking to me (I have opinions about some of the reasons for
that, but this is not the place for that).

This one's just weird, and I would like to hear your opinions here.

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luckydude
I sort of get where he is coming from but I don't live my life that way (and
it has paid off). When I started my company I got advice from the guy who
started Sun (avb), the guy running Redhat (Bob Young), lots of people who were
farther along than I was helped me. I've returned the favor in a pay it
forward sort of way. My wife used to ask me why I gave of my time so freely
and I don't have a good answer other than it's how I'm wired.

I don't know OP but if I met him I'd ask him to think about the people who
have helped him.

I am sympathetic to some of what s/he said. If the demands are so much that
you can't get your own work done, ouch. If people don't value your time, yeah,
time to move on. But I wouldn't turn that into "No help for you!" as a way of
life. To each their own I guess.

~~~
sdiq
She/her.

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Jemm
Publishing an unsolicited article about how you no long give unsolicited
advice is somehow flawed.

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MrQuincle
“Satanism advocates practicing a modified form of the Golden Rule. Our
interpretation of this rule is: "Do unto others as they do unto you"; because
if you "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," and they, in turn,
treat you badly, it goes against human nature to continue to treat them with
consideration. You should do unto others as you would have them do unto you,
but if your courtesy is not returned, they should be treated with the wrath
they deserve.”

― Anton Szandor LaVey, The Satanic Bible

~~~
ryanwaggoner
If the goal is a happy, well-adjusted life, I have a hard time thinking of
anyone whose advice I would be less likely to take. This quote is just more
confirmation of that.

~~~
MrQuincle
LaVey was a charismatic person:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bsAnXPhCOA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bsAnXPhCOA)

Why would you think he didn't have a happy life?

~~~
ryanwaggoner
Charisma is orthogonal to happiness, at best.

His relationships didn't seem to generally go very well, but beyond that, I
just find his extremely selfish worldview pretty sad and shallow. Not the
world I want to live in.

Many people I know in person and online would disagree, but that's ok. I don't
generally think of many of them as very happy either.

~~~
MrQuincle
"There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the
heavens: a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to
uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to
build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to
dance, a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them, a time to embrace
and a time to refrain from embracing, a time to search and a time to give up,
a time to keep and a time to throw away, a time to tear and a time to mend, a
time to be silent and a time to speak, a time to love and a time to hate, a
time for war and a time for peace."

I don't know so much about LaVey's relationships, probably you can help me
there! Solomon's relations weren't that good either though. :-)

This topic is in my opinion one of the most difficult ones in life. What is
right to do? Of course to just always take an eye for an eye is an extreme,
but so is to turn the other cheek.

Moreover, there are a lot of people who don't love themselves enough. This
leads to a vacancy that needs to be filled somehow by others, they seek
endless confirmation or only find "purpose" in higher powers.

It's a very deep topic and I think I will need a lifetime to understand it. I
think it's also very difficult to tell if other people are happy. I definitely
don't ask often enough if people are happy. :-)

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thefastlane
a life must be balanced around certain principles; we feel it and we see the
undesirable results when it is unbalanced; recalibrating -- adjusting
boundaries in our lives -- is often necessary, as Pham illustrates. these
boundaries must be derived from a respect for one's self, one's work
(regardless of whether you are paid for that work or not -- e.g., a poet often
is not), and one's family.

however, we must never throw magnanimity out the window wholesale; it would be
a travesty to abandon such an essential virtue.

"Why I Quit Being So Accommodating" is a great essay that showed up on HN some
time back; worth a read for a fuller treatment of this topic.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969041](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4969041)

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reed1
It's true for professional work. But when parents ask you to do something then
do it, and learn to do it properly.

~~~
QuercusMax
When I've watched my parents' plants, they gave me a list of how much water
each one needs, and how often. Evidently neither she or her parents thought to
communicate about how the plants should be watered.

This article is just plain stupid.

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draw_down
Holy shit, this is awful.

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guytv
So disagree.

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dsabanin
aka "Why I'm an asshole and why you shouldn't judge me"

