Take care of yourself. Take care of your family. Be there for your friends. Help those who cannot help themselves. But be careful not to do too much for those who can do for themselves. For when you do, you deprive them of living. You take away their dignity and identity. You take away their role in the world. Everyone must feel that they have something to give, have something to offer. When you make people dependent upon you – when you pick up their mat instead of yours – you create unintended problems and consequences. Your “being nice” doesn’t help but cause more problems. In the end, they come to resent you. Be careful then and discern what is true charity.
