On the subject of rescuing

My tendency is to get involved as opposed to keeping my distance. I enter a room and sense tension and instead of ignoring it, I ask everyone what's going on. I see someone being unfairly scolded and I step in to advocate. I stop my car to help if there's been an accident. (Unless I have my toddler with me or I'm SUPER hungry.) I call 911 if I see a crime being committed. I ask apparently lost children if they need help. I take stray dogs to the animal shelter. I tell strangers there is toilet paper stuck to their shoe.

Basically, I just can't mind my own buisiness. Some of my favorite people often advise "just stay out of it" or "just ignore it" or "shhh, don't say anything!" But it's just not in my nature. Sometimes it can definitely be a good thing. I mean, if your 90 year old, blind mother suffering from dementia, wanders from the nursing home in a night gown in the middle of the night in the dead of winter, you want someone like me around. (Why I would be out in the middle of the night in the winter near a nursing home, we aren't going to discuss...but you get my meaning.) However, sometimes my hawk-like swooping in to rescue someone is unwarrented. Because said person is a fully grown adult who can, perhaps, handle themself just fine. Or I don't have the whole story.

For example, it's like when your kid tells you that someone on the playground hit them and you freak out and then come to find out that your kid actually hit the other kid first. (There is no greater wrath inflicted upon children the world over, than that which emerges from the discovery that said child has not been forthcoming, leading to misdirected mama-bear anger.) Standing up for someone you love is scary but feels empowering and good and right. Except when you didn't have all of the information. Then you just feel like an jackass.

When I think about where this comes from, for me, it's that I do not care for being subjected to watching people I care for experience unpleasantries. (And I can care about someone after standing next to them in line at Starbucks for 3 minutes.) If I can stop the pain, embarrassment, unfairness, I will. I don't think about the cost - my time, the risk, being wrong, etc. But none of those are as damaging as the hidden cost, which is this: have you ever learned something the hard way? I certainly have. Don't trust a guy who says "trust me." Don't tell a secret that you don't want plastered all over your world for all to see. He's just not that into you. Three is a bad number when it comes to girls/young women hanging out. (It's better when you're older, but still, not ideal.) Save as you go. Try on jeans before you buy them. Don't keep a balance on your credit card. Pay the meter. Pay the ticket you got when you failed to pay the meter.

I think, unfortunately, I've learned the lessons the best when the path has been the hardest. I look back and think "I hated going through that, but I sure needed to." So what are we doing when we swoop in? Unless it's life or death - and it hardly ever is - we are delaying an important life lesson for someone we love. It takes strength to stand up and save someone. But it takes strength, patience, wisdom, tough love, a strong stomach and probably some wine to step back, get out of the way, and let life happen to people. Especially when you know you're the one they are going to whine to about it afterwards.