With the help of my friends

One does not have to be Ringo Starr to need the help of their friends, or The Beatles to provide assistance. Life is full of challenges and we are not always (actually very rarely) ready to take them on, specially without some preparation. We all end up looking for help in our environment, from just an attentive ear to listen to our problems, to honest advice on how to face them or even real help in the most difficult situations, where the solution simply requires more hands, more resources or more strength than we can muster on our own. And it is very important to understand that seeking advice is not a blemish, but a sign of resilience and a sincere effort to overcome a problem that overwhelms us.

Conversely, it is only natural that our friends look our way to get some help whenever it is they who are in trouble. And, as it happened to me a few days ago, sometimes all they need is someone to listen to their tirade and vent some steam. Today, it was my turn to lend my ears to a friend of mine that called me on the phone after lunch.

Photo: rawpixel.com at PxHere

Depending on the mood, listening to someone rant can be a very uncomfortable situation, because they can be feeling helpless in front of the problem, or even angry that life (or their luck) has put them in such predicament. This, and much more, was part of my conversation and stayed with me the whole afternoon. How can we help people when there is nothing that can be done to help them?

In this type of situations, I generally try to focus on providing support in three different ways:

1. Acknowledge that it is normal that they feel overwhelmed by some situations in life, like the present one. We are not superhuman and seeking out help is a perfectly adequate response. At this point I usually try to send positive messages like "I know you can do it", because it is normally not the right time.
   
2. Accept their grief over their "bad streak". This is often just a matter of perception and most of the time not warranted, with obvious episodes of not-so-bad luck in between, but disputing their feeling does not help most of the time. Eventually your fried finds out that their luck has actually not been that bad and dismisses the idea on their own.
3. Listen carefully to understand it they are looking for real help or just moral support. There is almost nothing worse than your friend asking rhetorically "What can I do?" only to see you enumerate a series of obvious options that, technically, would be valid responses, but that they have already discarded even before they came to you.

My friend did not need any actual help today, so I just heard him out, watching his anger ebb and flow until he eventually ran out of gas and calmed down. It was very hard for me not to offer unsolicited help, but it all worked out. I am pretty sure that he will figure out a way ahead or come back for actual assistance if he discovers that he needs my support.

The whole episode has been quite exhausting, so I have not made much progress in the afternoon, but hopefully now that I have had a chance to reflect on the matter myself I will be able to clear my mind and clock in still a couple of hours before bedtime. See you all tomorrow.