The fact that you carry it well does not mean it is not heavy
How many times have you heard people saying “yes” to everything and trying to help with everything as much as they could? How many times have you seen these people burning out, slowly, up to the point they cannot take anything more, and they just start pushing back because they unlock a defence mechanism that is basically triggered by our innate survival instinct?
A self-preservation behaviour is something that our psyche starts using unconsciously every time we are in danger. In a condition of stress in which we are under pressure whether we are in a jungle trying to fight for our life against an alligator or at work being swamped by an enormous amount of tasks, our prefrontal cortex starts controlling our emotional responses to stress. But, even the most tenacious people need a little help, and the best help we can get is social support. Your family can support you when you are having a hard time, your friends can cheer you up with a cold beer and your co-workers can help you out by showing empathy.
When people are in a condition in which they say “yes” to everything, not because they want to have control over things, but just because they like helping others and because they like learning, or simply because they do not like to say they do not know, so they work to find answers as it is a practice that makes them feel good; this is a typical situation in which they will end up having too much on their plate. In this scenario, social support may fail to make its appearance especially at work when people are too busy to realise. This happens when people enter into a loop in which they have their own routine, they have tasks to complete and they try different paths until they find a node in their path that always feeds back positive responses. Why change path then? It is working perfectly!
What we often do not realise is that while the path we create to accomplish our results makes perfect sense, it is not indestructible as the network is composed of people. If it was a piece of hardware I would say that we could use it indefinitely as a node might break or burn, and we could simply replace it. On the contrary, people have feelings, difficulties, personal life and also a maximum capacity. We may not realise it as human beings do not look like recipients, but we do have a maximum capacity of what we can or cannot bear. For this reason we all need to take care of each other. The fact that we carry the weight very well does not mean it is not heavy, so we may feel how heavy it is at some point. A mother to two kids who is trying to find her balance between her motherhood and her career, but who is also living the tragedy of a sick husband to be looked after is something heavy to carry. The fact that she is always smiling and cheerful does not really mean that the weight she carries is not heavy. So, before you go and ask, for the hundredth time, for something that you can really do yourself as you may find the answer in the exact same way the node in your path will find it, pause for a second. Think if it is really something that you cannot do yourself at all, then go ahead.
