You can try to “help” people, but at a certain point you realize they can’t or won’t change. All you can do at that point is to disentangle yourself from their lives, or, if you are a saint, continue to try to protect them from being hurt. I don’t know what you get out of that. Maybe a relative might take that on. But you have to give up all hope that they will ever be able to take care of themselves as long as you help them. So don’t expect any change at all if you want to help them.
Once you realize that, then your work is a gift. You expect nothing in return.
I have a number of friends who have various different kinds of limitations. I have coworkers with other limitations. I had an employee with ADD. She was fantastic at doing the detailed shit that I hate. But she couldn’t plan her way out of a paper bag. So I had her do detailed shit and I did the planning and it was great. She was constantly coming to me with suggestions out of nowhere. They weren’t very useful, but I appreciated her effort and concern.
I had friends who couldn’t meet at a restaurant on time. They were almost always half an hour late. Or they came late to the parties. We learned not to expect them at the appointed time, and we just did stuff without them until they came.
I have a friend who is always losing his wallet or having his car stolen (he probably leaves his keys in the door). We just know this will happen every once in a while, and we joke that he cannot hold onto things. He leads an arts organization and is really good a art production, but sucks at managing the place. We work around it as best we can, but we don’t expect him to ever become organized.
It is my belief that the best thing to do is to work with a person and to identify their strengths, and design the work they do so they can succeed. You don’t ask them to do things they are no good at. I don’t know what your relationship is with this person, but to the extent you can, I’d try to do that.
Do you know what they do well? You obviously know how they fuck up. But the trick is to think about the positive and focus on that. Anyway can pick holes in anything. Critics are on sale: a nickel a dozen.
People who can identify other people’s strengths are hard to find. Most people aren’t looking to build someone else up. Most people want to change someone else into what they think the other person should be.
This person is clearly somewhat dear to you. What is he or she good at? How can you fix it so they do more of what they are good at and less of what they are bad at? This will require creativity, especially at work. Work places are not usually designed well to be flexible. They think all people are the same, far too often.
So what are this person’s strengths?
Composing members:
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