So a bit of philosophy is that when helping someone it’s meant to be done without debt, other wise you’re not really helping you’re just doing business. - A few stoics have this view.
However if your friends are simply taking when they need and never giving when you need, that is probably something worth addressing as it’ll eat at the friendship. It’s certainly eaten away at a bunch of my relationships over the years. I feel I spent my 20/30s trying to be a helpful compassionate person, but if I try to put that on a balance, people helped themselves to my helpfulness and compassion. When I had problems - depression, car accident, back injury, eviction, medical complications - I didn’t hear from anybody. After all that I stopped trying to help people, I stopped working as a therapist, I gave up on people. After A FEW YEARS I started to get the occasional low-effort text message about missing me. It didn’t make me feel like resuming my efforts as a useful person. It felt like they missed my efforts and not my person hood.
And on talking drivel: “Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It’s by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I’m human” - Fyodor Dostoevsky.
So a bit of philosophy is that when helping someone it’s meant to be done without debt, other wise you’re not really helping you’re just doing business. - A few stoics have this view.
However if your friends are simply taking when they need and never giving when you need, that is probably something worth addressing as it’ll eat at the friendship. It’s certainly eaten away at a bunch of my relationships over the years. I feel I spent my 20/30s trying to be a helpful compassionate person, but if I try to put that on a balance, people helped themselves to my helpfulness and compassion. When I had problems - depression, car accident, back injury, eviction, medical complications - I didn’t hear from anybody. After all that I stopped trying to help people, I stopped working as a therapist, I gave up on people. After A FEW YEARS I started to get the occasional low-effort text message about missing me. It didn’t make me feel like resuming my efforts as a useful person. It felt like they missed my efforts and not my person hood.
And on talking drivel: “Talking nonsense is the sole privilege mankind possesses over the other organisms. It’s by talking nonsense that one gets to the truth! I talk nonsense, therefore I’m human” - Fyodor Dostoevsky.