Be the Change You Want to See

I have one of the worst habits in the world. I’m a fixer. Or more to the point, a “people-fixer”. I believe I can take a broken wing and mend it.

So, being a fixer, I stick my fat nose into situations that I should rather stay out of. Of course, I’m not so crass as to call myself a fixer. I couch the word differently. I like to say that I want to make a difference in peoples’ lives. Heck, I even chose a career where I can fix people, sorry, “make a difference”. I’m a professional motivational speaker and trainer helping other people fix their lives and improve their situations. I think I even put it on my website www.jacquesdevilliers.com once: “I want to make a difference”.

It’s taken me a while (like 33 years) to realise that trying to fix things is an exercise in futility and can lead to a world of pain.

It’s taken me a while to get that I’m more broken than those I try and mend. That I try and mend others because it is easier than dealing with myself.

Oscar Wilde said that “No good deed goes unpunished”. I think he’s right. I recall having a girlfriend whose father was killed in Soweto. He was killed by the very people he was helping. You’ve been around long enough to have heard about religious preceptors who have been killed by someone in the community they serve. Teachers that get beaten up by their pupils. Parents that are killed by their children. Yeah, yeah, I know the Bible bangs on about the Good Samaritan. I dunno. More often than not it doesn’t turn out too well for the Good Samaritan.

I’ve pondered why the Good Samaritan gets smashed up. Even the ultimate fixers don’t get out unscathed – next time you pray, why don’t you ask Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Noah and Abraham amongst others, how they fared in the fixing business. They’ve been spat on, cursed and endured untold suffering at the hands of those they’re supposed to have helped. So, if they can’t get it right, how arrogant is it to think that mere mortals like you and me can pull it off?

Maybe the human is an arrogant, ungracious and selfish moment in time.

Maybe when someone helps us we feel that we owe them a debt and that makes us feel extremely uncomfortable. So, much so that we get up to the most unimaginable mischief; lashing out and generally behaving badly.

Or maybe it’s as simple as feeling shame. Being ashamed that we haven’t cracked the code to living a life of elegance and eloquence. Having to get help from someone else is always an inelegant solution because it feels as if one owes a debt to the Good Samaritan.

Of course, the fixer also needs to go inside and figure out his or her intent. Is their help conditional? Is the fixer trying to get some reward? Does the fixer think that mending others gives him or her extra points to secure his or her place in “Heaven”? Is the fixer cowardly like me and doesn’t want to deal with his own brokenness so he distracts himself by mending others?

I’m starting to lean strongly to an aphorism from one of my spiritual teachers, Etsko Schuitema: “We are not here to fix things. We’re here to witness that they work”.

I think that’s about right. Things are going to turn out as they will without any interference on our parts. Tomorrow the sun will rise in the east and set in the west. Tomorrow people will still be murdering, stealing, cheating and behaving appallingly. Tomorrow people will still be loving, gentle, kind and behaving benevolently. Our fixing, cursing and anger won’t make an iota of difference to this cycle.

But, if you are afflicted by the “fixer” curse, then direct your benevolence and focus to where it will be the most useful – to yourself. I suppose I can’t really say it better than Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”