People Keep Exploiting me and Using my Kindness
I feel that because of my kindess and willingless to help others I keep attracting people who exploit me and use my kindness.
Here's one example:
Last year I started attending a new church. There was this disabled guy who was blind from birth. One time some church members asked me if I could give this guy a ride to one of the church events. I was glad to help - especially since we lived in the same area and were going into the same direction.
So from there on I started offering him rides to Sunday services and church events. Sometimes, once in two or three weeks, he would ask me to take him to a shop, drugs store, hospital etc.
However, after some time these occassional rides turned to 3-4 every week. Every ride took about 3 hours. I was able to help out because I'm a freelancer and have a flexible schedule, but it often meant that on those days I had to work till midnight.
We were going to shops and drug stores to buy stuff for him and also for his girlfriend who lived separately. Supposedly his girlfriend was so sick that she couldn't leave the house and shop for herself, but whenever I saw her she didn't seem that sick to me that she wouldn't be able to go to a grocery shop or a drug store that were literaly below her appartment. Few times I even drove his girlfriend to a hospital to other cities which took most of my day.
Even though I consider myself kind and patient person because of this I started to become quite bitter and angry with myself, with the blind guy, with the whole world and with the church because I was the only one from the church helping him. I really didn't like the person I was becomming.
There were few times when he called me and said he needs a ride tomorrow. I tried to politely refuse because I had work deadlines and said that he will need to find another ride. Next day he just called me and said: 'So, can you be at my place in 15 minutes?'
The last straw was early Summer when I took his girlfriend to hospital for a consult. She then said that she would have to visit hospital every day for the next 15 days. In the evening the blind guy called me but, but I simply didn't pick up the phone because I knew he was going to ask me to take his girlfriend to hospital for the next 15 days. I didn't have the guts to be rough with a disabled person, but also didn't have anymore time and energy to be exploited like that. We haven't talked since.
Now about a week ago I started to get in touch with another guy. He is also from the same church but we didn't get in touch for quite some time, plus the church was closed due to COVID-19.
In one week he already asked for three favors. He asked for some money - which I was fine with. Then he asked to help to transport a TV - also understandable because he doesn't have a car. The last favor was to take him home from a bus station even though it's only a 10-15 minutes walk. I myself always take this walk whenever I take a bus to another city and we live in the same area.
I once again feel that I will get exploited.
I don't understand why people start to exploit your kindess so easily.
Emotionally I want to just shut-in from the world, be selfish and never help anyone again.
On the the other hand I don't want to become this selfish prick who only thinks about himself. I want to be kind and help people. But how do I draw a line? How do I avoid such situations where people start exploiting my kindness?
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