Help, gratitude and indebtedness

Someone I know was going through a tough time. They were venting to me about their situation. Their supervisor at their work was giving them a hard time. "They treat me like a child. They speak down to me and give me instructions and lessons for everything", this person was complaining about their supervisor. When we were discussing this, one thing that came up was how my friend felt a sense of obligation towards this supervisor because this supervisor was the one who got them the job. This led to several important questions - 

1. Is the help we do transactional? 

2. What is gratitude? 

3. Is gratitude accompanied by indebtedness?

I am writing my thoughts on these questions in this blog with an intention to share with my friend as a follow up to our conversation that day. 

Is help transactional?

The word 'help' means doing something for others to make something easier for them or to be useful to them. Therefore there is a difference between doing a work for someone and helping someone. While doing the work for them means, taking responsibility for the completion of the work, help refers to supporting them accomplish that work. After writing this blog, if I gave it to my friend to review it for grammar, spellings and style, I am seeking their help. I still am responsible for completing this blog. They will review it and suggest what I can do to improve it. On the other hand, I can request someone to write a blog on my behalf. That would not be referred to as 'help'. From this point of view, I think 'help' is only partially transactional. If I help someone, I can expect that they would help me later when I need it. On the other hand, if I do some writing for someone, I can expect that they would pay me back by writing something for me, or in some other way, like money. There it becomes fully transactional and it is not 'help' anymore. My friend's supervisor supported my friend in getting the job. But the job was offered to my friend based on their credentials, experience, and an assessment of their fit for the job. The supervisor was a catalyst. Their words of recommendation supported the process of selection. Therefore the supervisor's support was a help, and not a transaction. When someone does a help for us, we feel grateful. 

What is gratitude? 

Gratitude is the warm feeling of goodness that comes when someone helps us or supports us in a work that makes things easier for us. The other day, I had to transport a heavy box containing 50 coffee mugs to the venue of an event. It was my responsibility to buy and bring the mugs to the event. There was no way I could have carried the box all by myself. At that time a young colleague of mine came home to help me carry the box. I lifted one side of the box and they lifted the other side. The weight got distributed between the two of us and it became easier to carry the box. I felt grateful to this young colleague. I cooked a warm meal of sambar rice for them to express this gratitude. That warm feeling which made me want to do something nice for this person is the feeling of gratitude. Gratitude can be expressed in so many ways. It can sometimes just be a broad smile and 'thank you', sometimes a warm embrace, sometimes a cup of coffee, or maybe sambar rice! Help often evokes gratitude and gratitude is expressed in simple ways. It is a communication of human emotion. There is no transaction there. Often the expression of gratitude can never be commensurate to the feeling that the help evoked. It is abstract and cannot be quantified. But sometimes one wonders whether gratitude is supposed to make us feel indebted.

Is gratitude accompanied by indebtedness?

Sometimes people tend to think that their help makes the person whom they helped indebted to them. This sense of entitlement often puts the person who did the help and the person who received it in an unequal power relationship. This is what has happened between my friend and their supervisor. The supervisor helped my friend get the job. They felt entitled to a sense of gratitude. Till that point it is a fair expectation. But they also felt that they were entitled to indebtedness. They assumed that they are more powerful than my friend. This assumed power differential made them treat my friend like someone without agency. All that my friend owed them is an expression of gratitude. It could be some gift, or a good meal together. My friend did not owe them their self respect and honour. 

This confusion between gratitude and indebtedness is very common. It is common to hear the words, "I helped them so much, but they did this to me..." This feeling of disappointment comes from the sense of entitlement that they must help me back. It is useful to remember that help is not transactional, it only begets gratitude. And gratitude is not obligation, it a warm and abstract feeling and emotion. To extend it a bit further, I also believe that no help is truly selfless and altruistic. Helping people gives us a deeper sense of purpose and therefore we get something in return for the help even without the person expressing their gratitude to us. At the end of this analysis the important lesson for myself is to stay grounded in the fact that 'helping' is not something very special or unique. It is how we as social beings go about our lives. When we help someone, nothing is owed to us. In a sense it is just something we must do to stay purposeful and relevant.