This Crow stated in an earlier comment:
Needing something gives a fine incentive to the one who needs, to discover a way to fulfill that need.
"Helping" them to fulfill that need goes a long way towards ensuring that the necessary skills are not learned, resulting in more need.
What does your nature tell you to do?
14 comments:
The old lady gets an emotional response: she is the priority.
The plumber is not helping, anyway: he is a professional, so this is his job.
And, personally, I would shy away from moving a kitchen sink for anyone who had 2 left feet.
Need should trump desire. So, the home with the flooding basement gets priority.
What if he is a retired plumber? Then it is no longer his profession, and he would indeed merely be "helping". Should he not help the old lady?
Perhaps he shouldn't: if he does, then the old lady will never learn how to manage her plumbing on her own. But if he doesn't, perhaps the old lady, who is also a retired copy-editor, won't help the retired plumber edit his memoirs.
Just a thought.
I pondered this post for some time, and realized I had missed the obvious:
When the plumber is asked for his help, he faces an entirely different scenario than simply helping, uninvited.
Having being invited to help, it becomes his decision, not an obligation, nor a duty.
Helping results from an invitation to help.
If there is no invitation, then it may not be help, but rather interference.
The helper does well to recognize the responsibility he takes on by helping.
Would your thoughts change if one of them was his parent?
Probably not.
But I have no parents, and I am not a plumber.
However, if I did, and if I were, based on the original scenario, as given, by you, I would decide the old lady, with a basement filling with water, was considerably more of a priority than what would seem to be only a cosmetic re-arrangement of a sink.
I think I missed the point of the original post. Mr Method: Why would anyone choose to help the second person before helping the first person?
I thought that, given the Crow's comment that you quote, the focus would be more on whether or not to help the first person at all.
Sorry, I meant Mr Methodic, not Mr Method.
I chose my wording carefully.
No one ever said that the old lady was the caller and neither was there a request for help. A situation was described to the plumber and that is all. The person with the sink specifically called and asked for help.
I was shaking up the crow's nest a little. This refers back to my post about Compassionate Ripples and The Crow's response. Twice in this plumber scenario he picked the opposite of his remarks about how helping harms.
The whole point really was about using ones skills to help those around them, well... look at those stones splash!
Haha :)
Clever trumps wisdom, every time.
Misdirection trumps honesty, every time.
That may be why wisdom and honesty are so rare.
Clever misdirection is so much more satisfying to the ego.
I would say (disregarding cleverness) that the Crow's first response is in line with what he has said before: the plumber is doing his job by fixing the old lady's plumbing system and getting paid for it. Even if he is responsible in some sense for her not picking up the skills of looking after one's own plumbing system, she still has to cultivate other skills in order to be able to pay him.
After still more thought, on what has turned out to be a complete waste of time, contemplation and goodwill, I have only this to say:
When words are chosen carefully, specifically to misdirect and deceive, with the specific intention of ridiculing and injuring innocence, then of what possible use are those words?
My wife is appalled at you, Mr. Methodic, and described you as an awful man. I remarked to her, that that might not be true, but certainly you have done an awful thing.
I am shocked, hurt, and disappointed. But no doubt, I will soon get over it.
What am I missing here? What "awful thing" has our blog host done?
I chose my words carefully but never in an attempt to deceive. You've received email from my work; you know exactly what I do. I live this scenario almost daily, at work as well as outside of it.
There was no intention of ridiculing or injuring, nothing of the sort. If you feel that is what happened then I certainly apologize. I can say for certain, there is no intention to injure in the future but it will happen again. I'm still a human that unknowingly makes mistakes, I'll even apologize occasionally.
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