You Are Not Making Yourself a Burden

Ram Dass was once asked to sum up the basic message of his life.

“I help people as a work on myself and I work on myself to help people.”

Stop for a moment. Look at that sentence. It’s circular. We give and we get.

But some of us have made it a one-way street.

You show up first. You remember the birthday. You do the work.

But when kindness travels the other direction, something in you moves quickly.

Someone compliments your work.

Oh, it was nothing.

Someone offers to help.

I’ve got it.

Someone thanks you and really means it.

Don’t mention it.

It feels like humility, competence. You don’t want to be a burden.

But notice how little it nourishes you.

By the end of a week, you are tired in a way sleep does not quite

touch.

You gave plenty. Almost nothing reached you.

And over time, people begin to believe you.

The offers for help grow quieter, not because they care less, but because you keep

telling them you are fine!

Under the reflex is a question: If I take this compliment , what do I owe? And why do I need their help to begin with?

Somewhere in your body, no arrives before your heart has time to answer.

But Ram Dass’s circle begins with the movement many helpers, many givers, quietly resist:

Letting love come back.

See, in 1997 life placed Ram Dass on the other side of his own sentence.

What he learned there changed the meaning of receiving help.

And it answers the fear beneath every time we say, “Don’t worry. I’ve got it.