Wanting to feel helpful isn’t the same as actually being helpful

I realized this year: Wanting to feel helpful doesn’t always result in actually being helpful.

This occurred to me when I was trying to give my friend suggestions about how to deal with his sibling, and it ended up making him feel frustrated since all I did was assume I knew the situation when I didn’t actually. And while an outside perspective might be insightful since it’s from a different perspective, there’s still the risk that it’s inherently unempathetic origins, since that genuine understanding is lacking and as such comes off as arrogant–however well-intended.

This happened to someone else, too. A friend was telling me about how he was concerned for one of his friends since she didn’t want to talk to him about something that had happened to her. He kept encouraging her to open up to him, certain that it would help–which it usually does, though only at your own pace, and dependant on whom you open up to, as well. Sometimes you just want to be with your own thoughts and figure things out, but I noticed that his insistence on “being there” for her frustrated more than helped, and as such was “selfish” in wanting to feel helpful, and not necessarily actually being helpful by respecting her personal space.

I constantly have to remind myself that everyone is different, and as such, that they have different coping mechanisms and preferences. When I care about someone, actually being helpful matters more to me than feeling helpful.