I CAN’T. YOU HAVE TO!

Did you ever meet someone who acted so humble yet was totally unaware of the needs and wants of others?

People like this act as if they are nothing, yet expect everyone else to focus immediately and exclusively on their needs and wants. They seem to be unaware that other people also have needs and wants. Their logic, if you can call it that, seems to go like this: “I am nothing, and I have nothing. Everyone else is much luckier than I am and has much more than I have. I cannot take responsibility for myself. Everyone else must focus on me because I am so needy.”

When others respond to their demands with an expectation that they at least contribute to meeting their own needs, their response always is, “I would if I could, but I can’t.” When others suggest that they cannot drop everything else and focus exclusively on meeting their needs, these people respond, “You can, but you just do not want to help me.” They seem to live by a simple philosophy of life: I can’t. You have to!

Some of these people are exceptionally charming. They have learned how to manipulate other peoples’ feelings of pity and guilt to get what they want. Many of us respond to them the way they want, by meeting their needs. This, of course, reinforces their behavior, and they learn to demand more and more from others and less and less from themselves. Eventually, they do not even try to do anything they find difficult. From that point on, they become almost completely dependent on others.

In a way, their belief system is congruent with humility. They really do believe that they are much more limited than everyone else. In another way, their belief system is totally incongruent with humility. A truly humble person focuses on helping others, not demanding that others drop everything and focus on helping “me.” People with this belief system act as if they are the center of the universe. “I am so humble” and “the world revolves around me” are not compatible sentiments.

I wish I had a good approach to handling people like this that I could recommend to others. I do not. The beginning of a solution seems to require two realizations. First, reinforcing another person’s dependence by constantly doing things the other person could accomplish independently may be an act of pity but is not an act of kindness. Second, each of us is responsible to be aware of and respond to the needs and wants of others. This responsibility, however, does not require anyone to become overly involved in another person’s pathology.

As in everything else in life, each of us must learn to balance our responsibilities to others with our responsibilities to ourselves.