Helpers live strange lives.
They give without being asked loudly.
They help without calculating returns.
And when life turns, they are expected to disappear quietly.
No applause. No credit. No memory.
How Helping Slowly Becomes Invisibility
There is a social rule nobody teaches you:
Help is respected only when the helper stands above you.
When the helper stands beside you or worse, falls below you help stops being generosity and starts feeling like obligation.
At that point, gratitude quietly exits the room.
The Helper’s Trap
Helpers often give from sacrifice, not surplus.
They help when they shouldn’t.
They stretch when they can’t.
They assume goodwill compounds like interest.
It doesn’t.
What compounds is expectation.
Soon, the helper is no longer thanked they are approached.
Not remembered but accessed.
And when the helper struggles?
Silence.
The Most Insulting Moment
The hardest part isn’t being refused help.
It’s being asked for help again by the same people who ignored you when you were drowning.
At that moment, the helper realises something painful:
To some people, help is not a bond. It is a habit.
Why Helpers Are Forgotten
A few repeating patterns explain it:
1. Help Without Power Is Uncomfortable
Acknowledging help from a struggling person forces people to confront an unpleasant truth:
I was lifted by someone who is now below me.
So the mind erases the debt.
2. Helpers Disrupt the Success Narrative
People prefer clean stories:
I did it on my own.
Helpers complicate that story.
3. Familiarity Breeds Entitlement
The more quietly you help, the more invisible you become.
Silence is misread as strength.
Kindness is mistaken for availability.
A Darkly Funny Truth
Helpers are remembered in two moments only:
* When they are needed
* When they finally say no
The second moment is when relationships collapse.
Not because you stopped helping
but because you stopped *absorbing disrespect.
What Helpers Must Learn (The Hard Way)
Helping is noble.
But unprotected helping is self-harm.
Boundaries are not cruelty.
Refusal is not betrayal.
Self-respect is not arrogance.
Closing Line
“Helpers don’t regret helping.
They regret forgetting themselves while doing it.”
If you’re a helper, remember this:
Your value is not measured by how much you give but by how well you protect your dignity.
Tag: emotional intelligence
Nostalgia is a Liar – And I Keep Falling for It
There’s a thief that roams around my mind often. It doesn’t steal money, time, or opportunities. It steals my now.
It’s called nostalgia – the most charming liar of all time.
I’ve realized something lately (after deep self-reflection… and one too many walks down memory lane):
We humans have a weird habit of loving what we had, and completely ignoring what we have.
Think about it…
- We miss school when we’re in college.
- We miss college once we start working.
- We miss the rookie hustle when we finally settle into comfort.
- We miss our first love when we marry a beautiful, nag-proof spouse.
- And just when we start enjoying couplehood, kids arrive — and we start missing our couple time.
And it doesn’t stop there.
This disease spreads to professional life too:
- We carry the baggage of past roles, old bosses, and “those glory days.”
- We talk about how things used to be better — instead of figuring out how to make this better.
We keep looking over our shoulder, wishing life had a reverse gear.
But here’s the joke — we’re so busy missing the past that we forget to make the present miss-worthy.
So today, I’ve decided to stop romanticizing what was and start appreciating what is.
No more looking back unless it’s to laugh, learn, or let go.
Because one day, we might miss this moment too — so let’s live it like it’s worth remembering.
AnandNataraj 