Generosity seems a good thing, but sometimes it ruins relationships.

The Thinking (Old)

I used to very appreciate (I still do) diligence people. They show the aura of passion, dedication it motivates me to try harder in live. When I see one, I tend to support him/her (both financially and mentally) through his/her hardship, hoping it will be a lever for him/her to shine bright and succeed in life.

The Backstory

My cousin (X) was lost in life. X changed its university (half-way, due to a very questionable reason, but let’s not discuss it now), worked in multiple coffee shops. X was in such in a financial hardship that all its decisions had to take into account the cost. There was barely space for accepting risk and long term impact. X was lost in its career, no long term ambition and just blindly chased that money to make ends meet. But X works hard, AF. Never complain, never think of doing bad things, just jumps in and earn every penny with its resources linearly. Someone might say that’s naive, I would say that’s pure and integrity. In this society where everyone is looking for shortcuts, true impact actually results from X. Then I helped X. A lot. I consulted X with career path. I appeased X. I supported X with laptop (just a loan, but a very generous one) for work when X got an office job (with our discussed career guideline) to reduce X’s workload intensity and space to improve physical health. I thought this was THE milestone. One day X would become that guy who motivates other people through their hardships and make true impact. The selfish version of me also hopes that one day I would be remembered as X’s lever. But no, it was not a milestone…

What’s After That

X asked for loan to buy a fancy bike. I still supported X thinking it was purely for mental health. That might be the last thing I lend X.

At least X can now step out of the hardship. Good thing X has its girlfriend, build sport hobby and gets healthier which is a very good signal. But X’s job’s stuck in the same place. No further improvement ever since. And furthermore, no saving was made.

It turns out X has a very high demand (not just recently, but now more visible than ever given its new career), and all its income then slipped into trips, fine dinings, girls, toy, … It seems to X that this is the peak, and the merits blinds it from the fact that this is just the beginning, and the world is still evolving, and X still steps on the same place. I, again, tried my best to push X to focus on its career, updating its CV, consulting with skills, courses, … but still no progress.

Most importantly, X seems to forget that it has a huge debt to me. The last good thing I did to X was to talk directly about the debt, giving its deadline until END OF 2027, given we split the rest amount into monthly registers. It has been months since the last time a register is fully paid. Yet trips and dinings still happens. The payment is getting smaller and less granular that it now feels like a mean to keep my mouth shut (even though I barely talk about this, and when I do, I never pressure).

I gave up then.

What This Concludes

Being too generous actually makes them put us down in their priority list. In my case it just becomes disrespect. I still appreciate X’s diligence but no longer see it as someone to be admired, to be motivated.

Maybe hardships ruin people mindsets that they don’t see long term credit, relationship, investment as something to keep. Their mind is stuck at short-term vision and dopamine. I really doubt that there will be another milestone in X’s life if it doesn’t change.

At the end, it was me who blindly supported X. The transition was too fast and thoroughly that it couldn’t reflect and become matured.