Help me, Help you.
I often ask myself this question in many situations.
In personal relationship..
.there was a time that I have said, "I bring an early retirement to life." Yes there was an ambition there, hardcore work ethics, simple financial security, nothing so out of the ordinary...a simple balance to life. I wanted 20 yrs of retirement to enjoy life, I wanted to put 20 yrs of hard service into life, I had already spent 20 yrs growing up from baby to adult.
Well of course it didn't work out that way. So what do I bring to the table now?
All I can say is that I have very little to offer in the like of my previous plan. All I can bring now is the best version of myself. Materialistica
lly that's not much to offer. However relationship, that's what is was about in the first place. In personal relationship, I have forgotten what I truly am, the real me. So what was the real me after all this time? The hero in me. While that constitutes the core of who I am, I still do not know how to be the hero that others will value. The core value of being Hmong.
The Hmong Way: You Help me, I Help You
Perhaps may have been misunderstood or misrepresented by those who have decided to use this to their own advantage as in an I Owe You contract. Originally, if I may be so bold to say, that the Hmong Way was a humanitarian way. I Help You when I have charity and a means to. You Help Me, when you have the charity and means to. We know as it goes that some people are more capable of helping, while others are in need of more help. It is not always an equal trade. There may have been times where the marker has been called and the need for help is great. Help Me Now, in my time of need. I will Help You on my word in your time of need. I have made that obligatory contract on my word. I will never make that obligation chain onto you. That is where it has been misrepresented . I will not force you to help me when I need help. I am asking for your charity, if you, the person I am asking, don't have it you don't. Now if you're just unwilling when you have the means to, well that goes that you may be a stingy and selfish person.
I was once proposed this question: Help me, help you.
Now it was strange to hear this out of the blue, when I was ever doing is helping others. So that one day, I was exhausted and depleted and choose to excuse myself from work about 1 hour before the actual close of day, as I have already fulfilled the weekly work quota and them more. It was a very low volume work week. Then all of a sudden after the fact the following Monday, I was having this conversation of work ethics. Bottom line the professionalis
m went out the door and I knew these folks were finding excuse for their lack of results. So deadlines don’t mean jack at this time. Anyway the question proposed to me was. “How do you help me, help you?”
I answered honestly, “Be professional. Treat me with the professional courtesy that I have given onto you.” So that is where the professionalis
m of this organization is at. It was more about smoke and mirrors than actual professionalis
m. The week leading up to that, I heard some gossips. Things said about how I’m such a whiner about stuff that don’t work. When I was told to leave this position, they had the audacity to say, that they needed to escort me out of the building. I couldn’t even say good bye or thank you to anyone else. This goes back to the key words, help me, help you.
This is again the misrepresentat
ion of the word. The way it is worded, in English is at the fault. It’s about this me, me, me first. The emphasis is again at the me level. The selfish way of saying I get what I want first and you come afterwards. Most of us are familiar with the Good Samaritan. This is about a person who sees a robbed, injured person on the side of the road, and then stops to help that injured person. That Good Samaritan did not stop to think, what if it was a trap? While the story ends there, how is it that we can apply this to ourselves? Obvious the Good Samaritan this organization is trying to be a representation of, is quite so. A lot of skeletons in the closet sort of to speak of locked and swept under the rug.
In the bigger picture of life and working relationship, I have always been the helpful person. Always helping others in their struggle or need, or when they stumble or simply stuck. I was willing, lending, aiding all those people. It was when I was not able to, that the fangs bared and the eyes glared right back at me. The discontent that these people harbored, was all tossed right at me when I least expected. I spent all this time, showing and delivering options that would help them, yet these people did none of that. I simply stacked the work, until it exploded and then look for an easy way out. I was supposed to be the easy way out for them, but on that day it didn’t happen like so. I am booked, obligated elsewhere, I am not able to deliver assistance today. That’s where the hate comes about. It comes back to the question they proposed to me, “How do you help me, help you?”
It goes back to accountability
. Obviously these people are well supported within the organization and I am being set up as the fall guy. The organization is very well designed to sweep unwanted things under the rug. When helping them clean anything, these things swept under the rugs are going to be found dirty as heck. Now that was my mistake being in good faith and all in my attempt to be helpful. You can’t help fix what’s broken if they choose to hide what’s broken. Everyone wants a fix for the symptoms but never the fix at the root cause.
So what do I bring to the table? As current I see nothing. It’s nothing until I see the value of bringing something to the table. I see nothing unless I see how my skill set and abilities are valued to be brought forth. I am always helpful, willing, and thoughtful of the accomplishing the goal. I am task orientated, time orientated, operational instruction detailed, methodically sequential performance detailed. People have told me often that I need to think outside of the box or need to see the bigger picture. How often do these people not realize that I see like nine boxes when you’re seeing one. When you see a big picture on the wall, I see the entire room and big pictures on every wall. I do not know how to explain to these people nor make them understand such things that are beyond the scope of their understanding. I am still learning, as I do not posses that kind of wisdom. All this time, "I've been helping you to help me." It's not working. I lack the method. It still eludes me.
probably one of my longest journal post...just the same thought, reflecting back and trying to find the best course of action going forward.