Sometimes, when asked a question, I feel like I should have an answer even when I don't. I've semi-touched on this before before, but that's not the same as this.

I wish I could just say "I don't know" and leave it at that, instead of searching for answers like a cornered animal desperately trying anything to get away. Whenever I've really felt like I should help somebody - even if that person doesn't want my help - I've let my mouth run wild with possible and impossible solutions, trying to be Sherlock Holmes on speed with mainly negative results. In short, I tried to solve everything for everybody. In reality, things don't work like that.

When I was a little boy, I developed self-worth issues. Through the years, these have petered out a lot, but not enough to completely vanish. During my early youth, I developed feelings of inadequacy in a variety of ways, often feeling as though I could have made life for my friends and family a lot easier and simpler, should I just have ceased to exist. I often felt like everything I did could and should have been done better, without holding up any rational explanation for this pretense; talk about a magnificent way for me to put myself down without any chance to defend myself (against myself)!

I think I developed those issues as I dearly wanted to prove to the world that I was acceptable, wanting to hear that what I did was good. God, I wanted to be right. I thought people secretly wanted me to help them with their everything, and felt I had to be prepared for it; I wanted to help, in every possible aspect. In hindsight, I think my motive was laudable, but I really made myself fall, trying to live by laws that could (and can) not be upheld in a sustainable, sane way.

Like I wrote above, I sometimes still feel like I should be able to help out at all times, but I think that's changing, little by little. I'm trying not to be somebody who does everything for everyone, exasperating all in the process, ending up extremely frustrated, desperate and exhausted. Besides, people have to take responsibility for their own lives - which they do, far more than I thought they did back when I was little - and I realise it's not my duty to tend the world. Sometimes, people grow up by making mistakes. And if a friend wants my help, I'm sure that she or he will feel more than free to extend a hand my way. Until then, I'll be trying not to trigger my old ways.