Think of your role in everything you do, every interaction you have, every person you meet, with every family member, as being only one thing.
You are a scaffold to them.
Which, by the way, is how they – who have their own life to live, whether you like it or not – see you.
Ideally you exist beside them.
Neither helping nor hindering their activities.
You simply (!) are a framework, aside from where they are building, so they do all the work, build all the confidence and take all the credit. (If you do it right!)
You have a lot of work to do in doing this.
You have to be there but not there, if you see what I mean.
You have to support silently but definitely.
You have to be there always but always in a support capacity.
And this applies specially to family, friends and work mates.
That is when I have my best feelings. When I know I played ‘scaffold’ in someone’s life.
As a parent you are a scaffold and not the sole determiner of their future or their experiences.
When my parents were adamant about me not smoking I simply hid my cigarettes in the back yard. And smoked all I wished.
Whereas they were a scaffold regarding alcohol.
I even drank too much. Once.
They put me to bed. (Scaffold at work.)
And I never really drank too much again.
If things are not going well, just back off and become more of a scaffold, and things will improve dramatically.
People will think you are a great person. Which, as a scaffold, you are.
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