Are you a "driven" person or an "overfunctioning" person? To be driven is great and admiral provided you have not slipped into the gear of overfunctioning. To overfunction in a job, at home, or in a relationship is to be imbalanced and taking on more than you should be doing at the expense of both yourself and the others involved. Obviously doing more than your share is detrimental to you for obvious reasons, but why is it detrimental to the recipients not having to do as much? It is detrimental to the underfunctioners because they will never grow or do and will forever be imbalanced in the dynamic. Not until they are forced to do their part will they. You will get burned out eventually and they will get put out once you stop doing everything. Stop while you are ahead and appropriately and in balance function in your daily life....work, home, relationships!
It's the story of the butterfly and the cocoon. Despite best intentions, taking on someone else's struggles robs them of the opportunity to grow stronger. Such a hard thing to see a child, friend, colleague, etc struggling, sometimes violently against something that we could fix for them in sort order. And then there are times they know we could fix it easily, and could resent us for not "helping". But so often the "help" they want is for the hurting and the pain to stop as quickly as possible... which means us opening the cocoon for them. It's still a balance I can't figure out.
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