Uncle Willie K passed away at the age of 59. He lived to entertain, until the last moment. He talked about how frustrating, depressing and helpless it was to not being able to serve other people when he was diagnosed with cancer, and instead, he had to be helped and taken care of by other people. He was a very 'giving' ...a typical hawaiian spirited man. I've been thinking about uncle Willie K for a few days now and I wanted to Introduce one of the stories that I have written in my book, Hawaii kara no okurimono, a story called "Eddie would go". I had a chance to speak to Clyde Aikau, a brother of Eddie Aikau, and he shared a story of Eddie Aikau. He talked about how these days, it's harder to find people who put others out of genuine love and compassion before themselves. It's true because if you're too kind, people would walk all over you. More people have walls around them out of fear of being betrayed or used.
I also wanted to mention about how some people end up helping too much out of codependency, so how do we know when we are being co-dependent, or being simply kind? What is the ideal balance? Is it "me" first or "them" first? Is it for a good purpose?
Although this episode doesn't give you an answer, (sorry I don't really have an answer,yet, yet!) but hopefully gives you an opportunity to ponder. How do we set our boundaries? How do we balance the percentage of giving and taking? When do we know that we are being good without throwing ourselves away?