Being helpless is being Human

When you are helpless, accept your helplessness. Don’t fight it, don’t hate it. Just be helpless.

I know though that this idea of accepting your helplessness doesn’t sound appealing at all. Because nobody likes to be helpless. Besides, after all, problems are meant to be solved. And when you can’t solve a Life problem, you will naturally dislike the entire situation. What you must realize is that your disliking something is not going to make it go away. What you resist will always persist – this is the Law of Life. So it is with helplessness too.

Problems are of two kinds: those that can be solved by you and those that can’t be solved by you. For instance, if your computer crashes, you can either have it fixed or use someone else’s computer. But what if your teenaged son dies in a car crash because the driver was drunk? What can you do to solve the problem of your son’s untimely death? There will be times in Life when no matter what you do, no matter how hard you try, you will not be able to solve some of your problems. You will not see a way out either. Your helplessness will make you feel wretched. You will find that all your academic education and your years of professional experience or all the money you have will be worthless in the wake of the Life situation you find yourself in. Even if you have been adept at crises management, there will be times, when your skills and strategies may just not work. What do you when you feel so vulnerable, so helpless and completely clueless?

My experiences in Life have taught me that when you don’t know what’s happening, or don’t know what to do, you must just go with the flow. You must simply accept your helplessness as part of your learning curve. I am sure you must have faced such situations too. Or you may be going through one just now. Wishing that you had all the answers and solutions to Life’s problems is being naïve. What can you do when your three-and-a-half year old daughter is diagnosed with acute leukaemia? What can you do when you are laid off from your first job owing to an organizational restructuring within a week of you being hailed as the best performer on the team? What do you do when your spouse cheats on you only because an old flame has come back into his Life? What do you do when your wife commits suicide leaving you two young children to raise? Some Life situations can fox you and leave you numb. And helpless. You will not know where to begin and which direction to head in. You can then either give up on Life or you can accept your helplessness and allow Life to guide you and lead you. People around you, your family and friends, will have myriad opinions and suggestions. Some will even say that you are not doing enough. But if you have the right intentions, if your motive is pure, simply make your efforts to turn around your situation daily and leave the rest to Life.

When you let Life sort situations out for you, your problem may not vanish magically or be solved miraculously. But you will survive one day at a time, with all your needs being provided for by Life. Well, that’s a miracle by itself, isn’t it? You will witness this miracle daily if you accept your helplessness and don’t resist it!

Being helpless in a situation is being human. To say that you don’t know how to solve a problem is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of high awareness and extreme humility. Because the truth is that all of Life’s problems sort themselves out over time. There is no other way. So, when you accept that Life is bigger, stronger and more capable than you are, your problems will not bother you. They will be there. But they won’t hold you hostage or cripple you. Then your helplessness will dissolve and you will find inner peace despite your circumstances.