Enabling is Like a Game of Chance

Delaying growth is your crime. Playing Savior is your verdict. Enabler for a lifetime is your sentence.

How can you tell if you are an enabler? You are an enabler if the enabled no longer appreciate help but instead expect it. It is easy to fall into that trap.

Becoming an enabler does not happen suddenly. It happens like the damage that is done by a slow water leak in a house. When at last the leak is discovered, major damage has occurred without realization.

At first, help is rendered because it is requested. The realization then emerges that the same patterns arise over and over again. And why do the enabled ask? They ask because they didn’t prepare. Preparation is not looking for an excuse for why things are as they are.  For example, when employed, planning for the unexpected is wise. Planning for the unexpected means budgeting with the goal of paying your savings account first. Planning for the unexpected means delaying gratification. Listening to a radio program recently, I heard the following, “Never buy a purse that cost more than the amount of money you consistently carry inside of it.” This does not include credit cards that you may have used to buy that purse.

Additionally, the enabled looks for a crutch. A crutch should be used only until one is no longer limping along. But instead of throwing that crutch away, the enabled just puts it in a closet until it is needed again. That crutch is the enabler. When that yes to a request become a no and the protests of the enabled is unreasonable and disrespectful, this is more proof that a change is needed.

If the enabled thinks in every instance they are the victims; this is another sign that it is time to make a change. Victimhood is a disease. A disease that is highly contagious and hard to cure. The first step in putting a victim on the road to recovery is to stop being an enabler.

So how do you stop being an enabler? Think of it as a mental illness. Address it as you would any illness, a broken arm, an upset stomach, diabetes. Seek and accept help. A complete cure may not be available but the symptoms can be alleviated.

“The rung of a ladder was never meant to rest upon, but only to hold a man’s foot long enough to enable him to put the other somewhat higher.” ~Thomas Huxley~