Helplessness

Helplessness is an all-familiar nebulous feeling. Often, we have fallen victim to this nagging yet unique mix of pain, frustration and emptiness. Helplessness may smother you and test your resolve. The longer you dwell in it, the more it appears to drown the fight within you. Similarly, the moment you give up in your struggle against helplessness, you will pass out, leaving you more vulnerable than ever. Certainly, the feeling of helplessness may be subjective, depending on the different circumstances you face, but its impetus often remains: it renders a person powerless, dependent or practically useless. Helplessness is a common emotion experienced daily. We feel helpless in situations where we cannot speak about or do anything to make the issue better. Victims of mental illness, for instance, experience helplessness in getting people to understand them. The deaf, mute and blind may have experienced helplessness in communicating with other members of society. The disabled may feel helpless in the loss of their ability to perform tasks considered to be simple for the able-bodied. That is, however, not to say that the rest would be free from helplessness. It is a feeling that plagues us all, from time to time. Helplessness is this sense of exasperation that none of us can escape from.

Helplessness, however, need not have an adverse effect on you. It is simply the emotion that one experiences when the individual loses the ability to have an effect on a situation. You experience helplessness when you lose grasp on security and control, not to mention power. To most, helplessness is painful, but, once knowing more about it, you will realize how that pain is, in fact, only the trifle worry of being powerless. Helplessness is the antonym of certainty. To be certain is to be aware, to be able to anticipate what has yet to come. Helplessness only makes us feel anxious because of our fixation with what we cannot predict: the future. Then, we allow our emotions to be clouded by the unforeseen. Helplessness is not to be in control, to be left in the blind, but crucially, helplessness is not necessarily negative. Helplessness is not just about the pain and suffering. When viewed with optimism, helplessness should be considered as a form of necessary evil. We are all bound to be helpless at some point in our lives, if only temporary, so what better way to deal with it than to accept and embrace it? Thus, the first step to its acceptance is to know how helplessness can actually benefit you.

To the optimist, helplessness can be interpreted as letting nature take its course. At times, we get ourselves mired in problems which we have no control of its outcome. We become unnecessarily worried, frustrated with all the doubts that preoccupy our minds. We are helpless about what life have in stall for us. In these instances, there is little value in expending emotional energy trying to force the things you cannot control. Often, the stress associated with helplessness is self-inflicted. Helplessness is not a cause for distress unless you let it be one. We have to accept that there are limitations to how much we can control in our ever-dynamic world. The more we attempt to change what we cannot, the more we will be getting drawn into the emotional struggle of not knowing what to do. Sometimes, doing just nothing at all could be the best one can do. That also means not allowing the lack of power in situations get the better of you. Instead, you can focus on matters that you can actually have an impact on. Patients afflicted with terminal cancer, for example, may feel helpless in their battle against it, knowing fully that their days are numbered. However, more often than not, patients in these situations are rarely worried about their death; instead they embark on their journey to fulfil dreams articulated in their bucket lists. Even though these less-fortunate patients are helpless against their will, they do not waste their time and emotional effort brooding over their eventual death. These patients are able to look past what they cannot change and work towards leaving the world with as few regrets.

To some, helplessness can be seen as the driving force of self-improvement. Not unlike failure, helplessness can act as a form of motivation for success. We are often driven by our fear of feeling helpless, not wanting to be caught in circumstances in which we are vulnerable and unable to fend for ourselves. This desire to be independent and useful is also the reason behind our thirst for knowledge (or hunger for success). Since it is in our nature to always try to prevent feeling helpless, we seek for ways to improve ourselves. The world has always innovated many ways to tackle the problems that render us helpless. When the blind and the dumb have had trouble with integrating with the rest of society in the past, Man invented braille and sign language respectively to obviate that.

Moreover, helplessness is an important aspect in the concept of empathy in people. Without the common sentiment of helplessness amongst people, the urge and inclination to help those in need may not exist at all. Our defining characteristic as social beings has allowed us to put ourselves in other’s shoes. Because we are able to recognize and acknowledge the emotional struggle of helplessness, we are naturally impelled to help others, especially those on the same boat as we are. For years, surveys based on proportion of income donated to charity between the rich and the poor have supported the claim that the poor are more generous than the wealthy. The fact that the poor are able to empathize with those in need better than the rich plays a significant role in explaining their generosity.

In fact, feeling helpless is only part of being human. Helplessness is felt when one becomes dependent on another. Human beings have always depended on one another to survive; in fact, we thrive on it. That is not to say that we should be helplessly dependent on everybody about everything. To be dependent on another requires one to place enough trust in people. According to Robert Putnam, a researcher famously known for his study in social capital, there is a strong relationship between trust amongst people and the well-being of the society. Generally, societies that are trusting of one another function better than the less trusting ones. In romance, for instance, helplessness could be to allow yourself to be dependent on your partner, to be fully invested in the relationship and to truly accept the love you deserve.

We often look at helplessness negatively instead of embracing it. Helplessness, though might not be pleasurable, form important parts of our psyche like all other emotions. Helplessness can teach us to be stronger than our struggles as it can be the catalyst for our growth. It can even allow us to commiserate with one another. We ought to forge on, learn to live through its toils and struggles, and more importantly, keep our hopes up and remain optimistic. It is alright to feel helpless.