For a long time, I thought I was doing good for others who couldn’t do something for themselves. I understood their urgency, desperation, anxiety, panic or their sense of helplessness. What I really understood was how they felt. My empathy was so strong that I could experience their emotions through my body, and sometimes it was really painful.

I’m not just talking about the conscious cheaters who played the victim role just because they were looking for someone else to do their job for them. With the latter, it was quite obvious – their learned helplessness was the way they had been getting what they wanted from adults since childhood. I had a perfect example in my sister at home, whose behavior, by the way, was actually imposed by our mother: she can’t do it, so we all have to help her. It wasn’t fair to my sister either, but when we were kids, I couldn’t understand that yet, so my rage was directed at my sister, not my mother. Then I just became a psychologist 🙂

But back to helping others… Yes, I really thought it was a virtue to help people who couldn’t do something on their own. After all, not everyone was interested in technology from their childhood like I was, so the fact that the world was moving in that direction wasn’t their personal fault. And I felt guilty if I refused to help them with the tech. It was just my internal “wiring”.

Until I started to realize that shaming and blaming were the way I was manipulated to be “nice” by my family. It was part of our ancestral culture. Because, can you imagine being a parent and having a child like me who has a lot of energy and because of his curiosity to explore the world just never calms down until he’s fully exhausted. Even when you’re already completely tired and just need some quiet to rest. Not an easy situation, right? And it was at least twice as hard for our grandmother, who took care of me and my cousin, who was a year younger than me. Because she “pulled the short stick” to take care of both of us every day during our pre-school years. Our own mothers had to go back to work since we were 4 months old, according to the law at the time.

For as long as I can remember, she’d been scolding us, punishing us, everything – you name it (yes, I have strange feeling of attraction to women who attempt to control me even now). Back then maybe eventually someone of those adults around discovered that directly shaming us or blaming us seemed to work better than scolding and give them longer periods of silence. Then probably using guilt as a weapon proved to deliver even more tangible results for these two little troublemakers, who eventually became more disciplined. Or something like that.

But if you can also look at it from the perspective of these little guys, you might see another point: when I shut up and feel ashamed or guilty, my mother or father or any adult feels better – they don’t suffer anymore – they’re not angry, they’re not irritated, they don’t fight with me or with each other. So it seems like it’s better to take care for their emotions by just doing what they want. They want me to not act, so I become passive and don’t do anything until I get approval first. The best and sweetest child! That’s how emotional codependency become the foundation of the identity of a nice guy.

And later, when I got into the big world as an adult, something strange happened. A lot of people wanted to get emotional comfort via my ability to understand. I became very popular in a very short time. These people called me when they were in strong emotion, because they discovered that I could endure them and find the real reason behind their emotional state, without judging. And the root problem was usually lack of understanding about the situation, which was because of lack of skill or lack of knowledge, so it was easier for me to explain how to make it or sometimes to complete their job instead of them. And they felt understood. Yes, they didn’t even thank me, but I had this feeling of satisfaction that I had helped yet another person in need. I felt so nice! And I had a lot of friends! Or at least that’s what I thought at the time 🙂

The only problem was the growing resentment I felt inside myself and I couldn’t figure out why this was happening. Until I exploded with my exaggerated reaction to the next person who tried to take advantage of me. I don’t remember who that person was or when it happened, but I remember how I felt at the time. It was a complete relief. For the first time in a very long time.

Then the next problem appeared – maybe a few hours later or even a few minutes later I started to feel guilty. Yes, I felt emotional relief for short, but the next moment part of me took the role of my inner critic and started judging myself: “How can you even imagine to do things like this? Only bad guys act this way! How can you be that bad? What will people think of you? Aren’t you ashamed? Why did you do this?”

In short, it really took me a long time to understand this “bad programming” from my childhood, but then it took me even longer to change my behavior. Because I started losing these “friends” by not giving them what they wanted. I had to lose my old life, including my own family and business, because I build it via the identification with the “nice guy”. In my case only then the transformation could happen completely at the end and yes, it was terrible. But after the pain started to disappear I’ve been surprised by seeing many benefits in the long term: I discovered who my real friends were. They were really few. And I no longer had these “social” obligations to always be nice. In fact, I completely failed according to imposed social stereotypes, but as return I got my freedom and it was really amazing!

The best part is that it wasn’t just about me. It was about others too. I realized that when I help others, I actually deprive them of the opportunity to learn to do the things they need on their own. Because that is actually the path to their own autonomy – the true liberation from dependence and becoming self-sufficient.

Since then, I don’t help others because for me, “helping” means “doing something instead of the other person”. But when someone asks me for help, I simply say: “I don’t do free labor for you, but I can teach you how to do it yourself. My price is…”