How helping isn’t always as innocent as it seems
Have you ever offered to drive someone to the airport?
How about babysitting someone’s kid?
When I was younger my Dad told me the cost of a favour is always more than can be seen at face value.
It’s nice to help, but do those asking for it realise the true cost?
The truth is a favour will always cost you more than the favour itself.
This could mean financially, emotionally, spiritually or practically.
Seeing beneath the surface of a favour
When someone asks a favour, they’re seeing the surface-level result of their request.
“Look after my dog” is all they see.
However, if the dog chews your £600 rug, or defecates on your velvet sofa, you’ve lost a lot.
The same applies for looking after someone’s child. You have to feed, water and entertain them. That all costs money… Especially your lost time.
Perhaps you needed to pick that child up from school — that costs fuel money too.
If you drive someone to the airport, maybe you have to get up early. That’s a cost of:
Lost sleep and perhaps poor productivity at your own job today.
Fuel money
Getting stuck in traffic/roadworks and potentially ending up late for work.
I’m sure you can think of loads of times a kind gesture has backfired and caused emotional damage or family arguments — it’s not always a financial cost.
You wanted to do something nice for someone and it resulted in mis-interpreted drama. Been there.
It’s not that you can’t ever offer help. I give plenty of favours. It’s understanding the impact of each request before you offer that help.
If you’re satisfied that the juice is worth the squeeze, then it’s worth offering.
It’s not about being self-serving, it’s about being self-preserving.
Your bills are nobody else’s priority, so you need to be consciously aware of how your choices affect your life.
Will lending someone £100 until payday make you default on your own bills?
Not many people value time either, so it’s worth putting a limit on how much of it you give to others for free.
How to better accept a favour from someone else
A favour is a duck swimming in a pond. On the surface they’re elegant and calm. Beneath it’s a frantic, paddling mess.
Knowing this, my advice is to always reciprocate a favour immediately.
You may not be aware of how much effort it has taken, or how much it’s put your friends or family out to conduct that favour.
If someone does something nice for you, buy them a drink, a meal or immediately schedule a time, there and then, to do something nice for them in return.
It doesn’t always have to be purchased. Perhaps you’ll help them spring clean next weekend.
You just need to show appreciation and that you’re willing to be there for them in the same way that they were there for you.
Maybe they picked you up from the bar and saved you a taxi fare of £20. Buying them a £5 McDonald’s meal on the way home shows appreciation for their time, fuel and kindness.
That gesture, although more expensive than not buying anything at all, is still cheaper than what they saved you from paying a taxi driver.
Relatively speaking, you’re still £15 better off after reciprocating.
You can’t have the opinion of “Well they offered, so I don’t owe them anything.”
A lack of respect for someone’s time and effort harbours resentment deep down inside of them.
Of course they said no to your offer of fuel money… It was because you said it like this:
“So you’re sure now that I can’t give you anything for driving me?”
That’s not an offer.
You’re putting the responsibility of asking you for money on to them. Instead of just accepting some. That’s awkward, so of course everyone declines… It doesn’t mean they’re happy about it.
The same applies for doggy-sitting. A ‘thank you’ card and a bottle of wine costs less than the emotional damage your pup would experience if you’d just left them alone for 12 hours.
The goal is to find a balance between giving and taking. An equilibrium.
Adam Grant has a great book called ‘Give and Take’ that illustrates this.
He categorises people as either ‘givers’ or ‘takers’ and as a giver, your job is to ensure that you’re not giving so much, that you’ve got nothing left for yourself.
It’s also to ensure that when taking, you’re not taking more than someone is willing to give.