To help someone is an action generally seen as a universally kind gesture. This leads to many people attempting to help in any way possible. While this is an amazing point in society to where it is considered almost inconsiderate if you don’t at least offer help, this can cause some issues. This causes many people to pressured to help at any and every situation. This would be perfect, if they were a perfect being capable of doing everything. With human limitations, this is simply impossible which leads to the following situation.

You are at work and you see a colleague you have helped in the past faltering at something you are not competent in. When they look up, they see you and ask for assistance. This creates a pressure where two main options are presented, to take on the task of assisting them which could very well make the problem more significant, or to say no and possibly seem unwilling to help.

Such situations can be categorized as a lose/lose with the best possible outcome is a neutral standing by deflecting the request towards someone more competent. This leads towards a question, is there a way to avoid situations such as these from occurring?

One simple things I have learned, is instead of working out exactly what they should do, simply give some advice as to what could help or to simply create a different perspective on the spot. One example is if the problem is creativity within a paper, think of what you have enjoyed reading in the past, and help give that example and leave them to incorporate in their own style. This leaves more them more freedom to think and understand.