Chapter 9: Helping Without Drilling Holes

The Mother Who Filled the Fridge

Hélène is fifty-two. Her daughter, Clémence, is twenty-four and recently moved into her first flat on her own, across town. Hélène is proud of her daughter, and she wants to help her settle in. So every weekend, she visits. She brings bags of food and fills the fridge. She cleans the bathroom. She rearranges the kitchen cupboards in a more sensible order. She brings curtains she has chosen, a rug she thinks will look nice and a set of storage boxes for the wardrobe. She gives advice about budgeting, cooking, laundry and which neighbours to be careful of.

Hélène works full time as a pharmacist, and these visits take most of her Saturday. She drives home tired, but happy to have helped. She feels that she is being a good mother, doing everything she can to make her daughter's life easier.

But over the months, Hélène noticed that Clémence seemed less and less pleased to see her. She answered the door with a polite smile but not much warmth. She sometimes moved the cupboards back to the way they were. She put the curtains Hélène had chosen in a drawer. One Saturday, she said she was busy and could not see her mother at all. Hélène was hurt. She had given so much. Why was her daughter pulling away?

Finally, Hélène asked her. Clémence was quiet for a moment, then said gently, "Mum, I love you. But I want to make this flat mine. Every time you come, you change things. I feel like I am still a child, and that I cannot do anything right without you. I need you to visit me, not to fix me." Hélène drove home in tears. She had been trying so hard to help, and her help had hurt.

Hélène's story touches a kind of trying too hard that is especially painful, because it comes from love. Many people who try too hard do so not for themselves but for others: their children, their partners, their colleagues, their friends. They give and help and fix, often at great cost to themselves. And sometimes, as Hélène discovered, their help does not help. The Zhuangzi tells a famous and troubling story about exactly this.

The Seven Holes

At the very end of the inner chapters of the Zhuangzi, in chapter 7, there is a short and strange story. There were three rulers. The ruler of the southern sea was called Shu. The ruler of the northern sea was called Hu. And the ruler of the centre was called Hundun, a name that suggests something like "the undivided" or "the formless". Shu and Hu often met in Hundun's land, and Hundun always treated them with great kindness (Zhuangzi, chapter 7).

Shu and Hu wanted to repay Hundun's kindness. They talked about what they could do for him. They said: all people have seven openings, two eyes, two ears, two nostrils and a mouth, so that they can see, hear, eat and breathe. Only Hundun has none. Let us make some openings for him. So every day, they bored one hole in Hundun. On the seventh day, Hundun died (Zhuangzi, chapter 7).

This story is shocking in its simplicity. Shu and Hu meant only good. They wanted to repay kindness with kindness. They wanted to give Hundun what they themselves valued and what seemed obviously good: the ability to see, hear, eat and breathe like everyone else. But they never asked whether Hundun wanted this, or whether his nature was different from theirs. They imposed their idea of a good life on him, one hole at a time, and their kindness killed him.

The story can be read in many ways, and scholars have discussed it for centuries. One reading, which fits our theme, is that it warns against helping others according to our own ideas, without respecting their nature. When we try too hard to help, we may end up drilling holes: changing people to fit our picture of what they should be, rather than supporting them in being who they are. The more energy and love we pour into such help, the more harm it may do.

Hélène, without meaning to, had been drilling holes in Clémence's new life. Each rearranged cupboard, each chosen curtain, each piece of advice was a hole bored in her daughter's independence. Hélène meant only love, just as Shu and Hu meant only kindness. But she had been giving what she thought a good life required, not what her daughter actually needed.

It is worth asking why people who try too hard so often help in this way. Part of the reason is love. But part of it, often, is worry. Hélène was anxious about her daughter living alone, and filling the fridge and organizing the cupboards gave her anxiety something to do. Helping in this way calmed her own fears more than it served her daughter's needs. Many over-helpers find, when they look honestly, that some of their help is really a way of managing their own discomfort. Seeing this is not a reason for shame. It is a chance to care for the worry directly, and to let the other person breathe.

The Seabird and the Feast

The eighteenth chapter of the Zhuangzi tells a similar story with a different image. A seabird once landed near the capital of a small state. The ruler, delighted by this rare visitor, welcomed it with the greatest honour. He brought it into the temple, offered it wine, had the finest music of the court played for it and laid out a feast of beef, pork and mutton. But the bird was dazed and frightened. It did not dare eat a single piece of meat or drink a single cup of wine. After three days, it died (Zhuangzi, chapter 18).

The story then explains what went wrong. The ruler had tried to care for the bird in the way he would care for himself, not in the way a bird needs to be cared for. If he had wanted to care for it as a bird, he would have let it rest in the deep forest, wander on the sandbanks, float on the rivers and lakes, eat small fish and live in its own way (Zhuangzi, chapter 18). The ruler's generosity was real. But it was the wrong generosity, given in his own language rather than the bird's.

This story adds an important point. Helping well requires understanding the nature and needs of the one we help. What nourishes us may not nourish them. What we would want in their place may not be what they want. A person who tries too hard to help often gives generously, but in their own terms: the help they would want, the advice they would follow, the solution that fits their own life.

There is a third image in the Zhuangzi that adds yet another side. In chapter 6, there is a passage about fish. When a spring dries up, the fish are left together on the dry ground. They moisten each other with their breath and wet each other with their spit. But, the passage says, it would be better for them to forget each other in the rivers and lakes (Zhuangzi, chapter 6).

This image is very moving. The fish on dry land are caring for each other heroically, keeping each other alive in desperate conditions. But their situation is terrible, and their care, though beautiful, cannot save them for long. What they really need is not more heroic care but water: an environment in which they can live freely, without needing to keep each other alive breath by breath. In the rivers and lakes, they do not need to think about each other at all, because the water holds them all.

For people who try too hard to help, this image raises an important question. Are we caring for others heroically in conditions that should be changed? Are we moistening each other with spit on dry ground, when what is really needed is water: more support, better systems, fairer conditions? Sometimes, the most helpful thing is not to try harder to help, but to work toward an environment in which such desperate help is no longer needed.

Hélène Learns to Visit

After her conversation with Clémence, Hélène thought for a long time about how to help without drilling holes. She realized that her daughter did not need a fuller fridge or tidier cupboards. She needed to feel capable and independent, with a mother who believed in her and was there when needed.

Hélène changed her visits. She stopped bringing bags of food and things for the flat. She stopped cleaning and rearranging. When she visited, she sat down with a cup of tea and asked Clémence about her life, her work and her friends. She admired the things Clémence had chosen for the flat, even when they were not to her own taste. She gave advice only when Clémence asked for it.

It was hard at first. Hélène often saw things she wanted to fix: dishes in the sink, a wobbly shelf, a bill on the table. She had to hold back. But she noticed that Clémence began to relax during her visits. She began to talk more openly. And, after a few weeks, she began to ask her mother for advice on things she was unsure about: how to deal with a difficult landlord, how to cook a dish her grandmother used to make.

Hélène also noticed that her own Saturdays became lighter. She no longer spent the whole day cleaning and shopping for her daughter. She had time for herself, for her own home and for her friends. And her relationship with Clémence became warmer and closer than it had been for years. "I thought love meant doing everything for her," Hélène says. "Now I think it means trusting her to do things for herself, and being there when she needs me."

Hélène's story shows that the opposite of drilling holes is not withdrawing. She still visits, still cares and still helps when asked. What changed was that she began to help in the way her daughter needed, rather than in the way she herself would have wanted. Like the ruler who should have let the seabird live as a bird, she began to let her daughter live as herself.

Nikos and the Rewritten Reports

Nikos is thirty-eight and leads a team of five analysts in a company that studies markets for food products. He is very skilled and has high standards. Whenever a member of his team hands in a report, Nikos reads it carefully and then rewrites large parts of it in his own style. He works late most evenings doing this. He believes he is helping his team by improving their work and protecting the quality of the department.

But his team members are frustrated. They feel that nothing they write is good enough. Some have stopped putting much effort into their reports, because they know Nikos will rewrite them anyway. One analyst, who writes in a clear but simple style, feels that Nikos's more complex style makes her reports harder to read. Nikos, meanwhile, is exhausted and resentful that his team does not seem to improve.

Nikos's situation is like the ruler and the seabird. He was helping his team in his own way, according to his own taste, rather than in the way they needed. His rewriting was like the court music and the feast of meat: generous, skilled and completely wrong for the purpose. His team did not need their reports rewritten. They needed to learn and grow, in their own voices.

When a senior manager pointed this out to him, Nikos was defensive at first. But he decided to try a different approach. Instead of rewriting reports, he began to sit with each analyst and discuss their work. He pointed out the main strengths and the most important problems, and asked them how they might improve it. He accepted that their style was different from his, as long as the reports were clear and accurate.

Within a few months, the quality of the team's reports had improved, because the analysts were now learning rather than simply being corrected. They took more care, because their work was their own. And Nikos went home on time most evenings. "I was trying to make everyone write like me," he says. "That was exhausting for me and discouraging for them. Now I try to help them write like the best version of themselves." Nikos had stopped drilling holes and begun to support his team in their own nature.

Funmi and the Dry Riverbed

Funmi is forty-five and works as a home care worker, visiting elderly and disabled people in their homes to help them wash, dress, eat and take their medicine. She loves her work and cares deeply about the people she visits. But the service she works for is badly understaffed. Each care worker is given too many visits, with too little time for each. Funmi often runs from one home to the next, skipping her own lunch, staying late without pay and covering for colleagues who are ill.

Funmi and her colleagues support each other heroically. They swap visits to cover gaps, share tips, call each other late at night when someone is struggling and give up their own free time to make sure nobody is left without care. They are like the fish on the dry ground, keeping each other and the people they care for alive, breath by breath, in conditions that should not exist.

Funmi is exhausted. She has started to have trouble sleeping, and she worries constantly about the people she has not had enough time to help. When she read the passage about the fish in the Zhuangzi, she cried, because it described her situation so exactly. She and her colleagues were caring for each other beautifully. But what they needed was not more heroic care. It was water: enough staff, enough time and fair conditions.

Funmi decided that, alongside her daily work, she would try to help bring water to the dry riverbed. With several colleagues, she wrote a calm, clear letter to the managers of the care service, describing the problems: the number of visits, the lack of time and the effects on the people they cared for and on the staff. They also raised the issue through the organization that represented care workers in their area. Change was slow. But after some months, the service hired more staff, and the number of visits per worker was reduced a little.

Funmi also began to look after herself more carefully. She stopped skipping lunch. She stopped staying late without pay, except in real emergencies. She talked with her doctor about her sleep. "I thought I had to keep everyone alive by myself," she says. "But one fish cannot be a river. We needed the river." Funmi's story shows that sometimes the most important help is not more effort within a broken situation, but work to change the situation itself. And it shows that helpers, too, need care.

Practical Steps: Helping Well

The first step is to ask before helping. Before you help someone, ask whether they want help, and what kind of help they want. "Would you like me to help with that?" "What would be most useful to you?" These simple questions can prevent many holes from being drilled. If the answer is no, respect it.

The second step is to understand the other person's nature. Think about who they are, what they value and what they need, which may be very different from what you would need in their place. Like the ruler who should have fed the seabird fish, try to help in their language, not yours.

The third step is to support rather than replace. Instead of doing things for people, look for ways to help them do things themselves: teaching, encouraging, offering resources, being available. Like Nikos with his team, help them become the best version of themselves rather than a copy of you.

The fourth step is to notice when your help is exhausting you or annoying them. If you feel tired and resentful from helping, or if the person you help seems to pull away, these may be signs that you are drilling holes. Pause and ask what is really needed.

The fifth step is to look for the river. If you find yourself helping others heroically in conditions that should not exist, such as overwork, understaffing or lack of support, consider whether part of your energy could go into changing those conditions. Talking with others, raising concerns through proper channels and asking for support are forms of help too, often the most important ones.

The sixth step is to care for yourself as one of the fish. Helpers need care too. If you spend your life moistening others with your breath, you will run dry. Rest, eat, sleep, ask for help and let others care for you. A helper who is exhausted cannot help for long.

Not Withholding Help

It would be a serious misunderstanding to read this chapter as advice to stop helping people, or to leave them to struggle alone. Shu and Hu's mistake was not that they wanted to help Hundun. It was that they helped without asking and without understanding his nature. The ruler's mistake was not that he welcomed the seabird. It was that he cared for it in the wrong way. The aim is not less care, but wiser care.

There are also situations where we must help, even if the other person does not ask or does not want it. If a child is in danger, if someone is seriously ill and cannot care for themselves or if someone is at risk of harming themselves or others, it is right to act, to call for help and to involve people who can protect them. If someone you know talks about hurting themselves, encourage them to contact a helpline or a medical facility right away, and in immediate danger call the local emergency number.

And there are people whose role involves caring for others who cannot fully care for themselves: parents of young children, carers of people with serious illnesses or disabilities, workers in health and care services. For them, the lesson of this chapter is not to stop caring, but to care in ways that respect the person's nature and dignity as far as possible, and to make sure that they themselves receive support.

Even in such roles, small choices can respect a person's nature. A carer can ask an elderly person how they like their tea, rather than assuming. A parent can let a small child choose between two shirts. A nurse can explain what is happening before doing it. These small acts of asking and explaining are the opposite of drilling holes. They say: you are still yourself, even when you need help.

A Short Exercise: Three Questions Before You Help

This exercise helps you notice whether your help is like water in the river or like holes drilled in Hundun. It takes a few minutes, and you can use it whenever you are about to help someone.

Think of someone you often help: a child, a partner, a parent, a friend, a colleague. Take a page and write their name at the top. Then answer three questions about the help you give them.

The first question: does this person want the help I give, in the way I give it? Be honest. If you are not sure, write down how you could find out, for example by asking them directly.

The second question: am I helping according to their nature and needs, or according to mine? Think about the seabird. Are you offering court music and a feast of meat, or fish and a quiet forest? Write down one way your help might be more in their language.

The third question: is there a river that is missing? Is there a larger condition, such as a lack of support, time, fairness or resources, that makes your help necessary in a heroic, exhausting way? If so, write one small step you could take toward bringing water to the riverbed, even if it is only telling someone about the problem.

Finally, write one change you will try in the coming week, and how you will notice whether it helps. Hélène did this exercise about Clémence. Her answer to the first question was: "No. She told me she wants me to visit, not to fix." Her answer to the second was: "I am helping the way I would want to be helped at twenty-four. She is not me." Her change was: "Bring nothing. Ask questions. Give advice only if she asks." She wrote afterwards: "We talked for three hours. I did not touch a single cupboard. It was the best visit we have had."

Chapter Summary

In chapter 7 of the Zhuangzi, two rulers repay the kindness of Hundun, who has no openings, by boring seven holes in him, one a day, and on the seventh day he dies. In chapter 18, a ruler welcomes a seabird with wine, court music and a feast of meat, and the bird, frightened, dies in three days, because it was cared for as the ruler would care for himself rather than as a bird. In chapter 6, fish stranded on dry ground keep each other alive with their breath, but it would be better for them to forget each other in the rivers and lakes.

Hélène and her daughter's flat, Nikos and his rewritten reports and Funmi in an understaffed care service all found that trying too hard to help can drill holes in others or exhaust the helper, and that wiser help asks first, respects the other's nature, supports rather than replaces and, where needed, works to bring water to the dry riverbed. This is not withholding help. It is caring more wisely, and caring for the helper too.

In the next chapter, we will turn to one of the most famous lines in the Daodejing, about how great journeys begin with a single step, and about the art of doing big things through small ones.