Reality Check: To Make It Easier

When looking for information a while ago, I phoned a local business. I wasn’t quite as prepared as I like to be. Some of us, you know, like to have all our questions lined up beforehand so we are clear about exactly what we need to know. It’s business-like; efficient for everyone involved. And it goes along nicely with that Choice Theory concept of knowing what you want. It’s helpful to know what you want because when you do, you’ll know when you have it.
But for this inquiry, my thoughts were vague and my questions were muddled, so they did, in fact, accurately reflect my situation. That is, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted. I wasn’t even completely sure what to ask so I could find out what I wanted to know.
I apologized for this. To my surprise, the proprietor responded with, “Don’t worry. We’re here to make it easier for you.”
What an encouraging response! And along with that encouragement, this response conveyed what I see as a delightful clarity about the purpose of the business.
One of what Dr. Glasser refers to as the “caring habits” that build relationships is encouragement. I know many of us want to be encouraging of others (and also to be encouraged ourselves). However, it can be hard to find the words and the actions that support genuine encouragement.
When said with integrity, telling someone, “I’m here to make it easier for you” strikes me as a statement of encouragement that could be helpful for many situations and in different types of relationships.
What does “making it easier” mean? We could say that we make it easier when we serve another according to their needs. This could involve actions, words, and in some circumstances, maybe even a hug.
Making it easier could mean shovelling a snowbank or making a meal.
Making it easier could mean reaching out to someone who is feeling alone. It could mean offering a different perspective, one that helps a person look at life with satisfaction rather than despair. Making it easier could mean helping someone figure out how to improve a damaged relationship.
However, before we embark on well-meaning efforts to make it easier, it’s important to ask permission to do so. My phone call seeking advice essentially gave the person on the other end of the line permission to help me. Ultimately, it is up to each of us to choose to accept someone’s help to make it easier for us or not.
If someone declines what we might believe is our generous assistance, we need to respect their choice. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be making it easier at all, would we?
In a perfect world, businesses and relationships who adopt a “make it easier” approach would thrive, whereas others would wither away. Not everything works that way. Thus, the “reward” that one might expect from our efforts to make things easier doesn’t always appear, at least not immediately. As you know, doing only good things doesn’t guarantee that only good things will happen to us. Reality can be annoying.
Given that, why would we attempt to make it easier for someone, especially someone we don’t even know? Because it encourages, builds relationships, and makes everything just a little bit more pleasant for all of us.
What do you think of “to make it easier” as a general guideline when we want to be a positive, encouraging influence?