| The Joy of Service |
Chapter 8 |
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It requires wisdom as well as tact to help other in truly good and beneficent ways. There is always danger of overhelping. There are some persons who never decline a favour that anyone is disposed to render to them. Children naturally accept whatever is given to them. Then there are older persons who seem always to have a hand stretched out for help. Indolent people never refuse to allow others to do their work for them. They are ready to accept gifts, to have their burdens lightened, to have their hard tasks done for them. But much of the help given to such people is real unkindness to them. Too much giving to children only teaches them wrong ways of living, gives them false ideas of their own duty and responsibility, and of what they should expect from others, and makes them less strong and self reliant.
Many a father says, “I had a hard and toilsome youth. I had to fight my own battles unhelped. I am not going to have my children do as I had to do.” So he makes life wondrously easy for his boys, has everything possible done for them, and indulges them in every wish. The good man forgets that whatever is noble in his own character and worthy in his career he owes to the very hardships of his young days. It was in those struggles, tasks, and self denials, that he got his manly strength. Then he is surprised that his boys do not turn out well, do not become strong, heroic, and useful men. It is the father’s overhelping that is responsible for their failure. If he had trained them to bear their own burdens, to do their own work, to restrain their desires, to endure hardships, to learn self reliance, he would have been a far better and wiser father to them.
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