Ask before you tell.

"You can only boost a man up a ladder if he is willing to climb"

That's a recent quote I found inside a fortune cookie. And while it may not be perfectly worded it is very true. The people in our group do their very best to help other people whenever possible, but what often happens is we spend a great deal of time and effort struggling to provide assistance to someone that isn't even looking for it.

We each have our own beliefs as to what life should be like and even those of us with similar visions still don't see things exactly the same way. And quite often we get stuck in our own head. We take it for granted that other people see things the same way we do and that they think the same things we do. So with this image of how things should be, we offer to assist others in coming more in line with our vision. But they refuse the assistance and we become momentarily confused.

You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. There's a whole bunch of different ways of saying it. They all basically mean the same thing. Don't waste your time attempting to help or change someone that doesn't want it.

A lot of people, women in particular, tend to decide that they know how a person, generally a man, ought to be. And with the right manipulation, they think that they can change that person into exactly who he should be.Without asking him what he thinks, or giving him a chance to say how he would like to be, they begin the long arduous process of turning him from the person he is into the person they want him to be.

Typically, somewhere along the way arguments spring up because she pushes him in a direction he has no interest in and often does not have any idea why she is even pushing him in that direction. She says she is doing it for his own good. He disagrees. They fight. She gets hurt because she feels she is doing the right thing He gets mad at her attempt to control him.

Her vision and his vision are different. If they sat down and talked about it, there's a chance they could unify their visions and work towards the same goal. But as long as she has a secret agenda that he knows nothing about she is going to want him to change in ways that he has no interest in and he is not going to understand why she is offering. People are the way they are because it is how they want to be. You are not going to get a person to change without them agreeing to, without them deciding for themselves that change would be good.

The problem here comes from assuming that one knows what is best for another. And that is something that is very rarely ever true, at least where adults are concerned. If you want to assist a person first find out if they are open to assistance. Ask questions. Be clear on what it is that they want and what it is that they do not want.  If they do not want coaching, guidance or support your efforts to provide those things are guaranteed to fail. If they do not want to change, don't try to change them.