Helping, Fixing, or Serving?

As a collaborative health and human services major, I have a passion for serving my community. I read this article by Rachel Naomi Ramen about two years ago that changed my perspective on my career. The article is called Helping, Serving, or Fixing, it helps differentiate between the three words that are commonly misused in the health and human service field.

Overall the focus of this article is to describe that helping, serving and fixing are three different ways of viewing life. According to Ramen, "When we help, we see life as weak. When we fix, we see life as broken but when we serve we see life as a whole. Fixing and helping may be the work of the ego, and service the work of the soul". This is a very powerful statement because although many like myself say we enjoy helping others, we don't realize that this statement makes us feel superior. When we fix things, we are saying we know what the right answer is but the truth of the matter is, it is not up to us to fix other people's problem. As a a health and human professional we should give people the tools so that they may advocate for themselves and be there for them when they ask us to be there.

A great quote she shares is, "Fixing and helping create a distance between people, but we cannot serve at a distance. We can only serve that to which we are profoundly connected". The idea of distance is relevant to the fact that through fixing and helping we feed our ego. We want to help people because we feel we are superior to the ones in need and we want to fix because we know the answers. When we differentiate with one another we create a gap, we create a distance. Being distant will never solve any  problems because we never address the real problem without a trustful an equal relationship. When we can finally put ourselves at the same level as others we can create a bond and build connection with one another. This will help facilitate the process of meeting our needs.

The challenges to helping and and fixing is that we usually address the surface problem immediately. Most social service employees for example are familiar with the term "burn out", It refers to the process of feeling defeated with what you do, physically, mentally and emotionally. After trying so hard to save the world, you come to realize that you are only one person and there is only so much you can do. Burnouts are more common with people who want to fix and help everyone. The benefits to serving is that you don't burnout so soon because you realize you are just a human being like the person you are trying to help.

Rachel later in the article shares two different stories about how serving has really been a life changing experience to many not just health and human service professionals. I have to say that when I read this article at first, I found it difficult to believe that the idea of "helping" wasn't always good but as I have gained more experience in the health and human service field I am more familiar with her beliefs. Serving creates a balance between helping and fixing, it's a win-win.