Conditional love.

 

Hi.  I’d like to volunteer.  I think what you do is great and I enjoy your work.  I support you.  Yes, I’d like to give of my precious time to help you.  I’d like to start by learning to do what you do, and I’d like you to explain all your activities to me so you can eventually entrust some of your wok to me. 

 

By the way, when I said support, I meant sell.  My support comes with all sorts of conditions.  I’ll only help you if you help me and do the things I ask.  If you don’t I’ll throw a tantrum and hiss at you.  If I don’t like the way you do some things, I’ll change them.  I may yell at you, but don’t blame me for my behavior, I’m not responsible for that.  And then there are the conflicts of interest.  I’ll only help you if you promise to hear me out when I pitch you, and if you don’t buy what I’m selling I may call you a martyr for saying no.

 

And if you call me on it, I’ll walk away and take your ideas and claim them for my own.  In fact, if you don’t do the exact thing that I want you to do, if you don’t let me control you and do when I say when I say so, I’m going to go and do them myself.  I may even be sp petty as to do it just to spite you.  This kind of support doesn’t come along every day, you know, and if you don’t want my services (I’m no longer just a volunteer, I’m now an s-corp) I’ll provide them to someone else.  By that I mean I’ll compete with you. 

 

But I still support you.  And if I need anything, I’ll be sure to ask you.

 

With friends like these… who needs friends?  Conditional support is not support, its selfishness.  If you believe in a cause, give of yourself without placing conditions or caveats.  The moment you make demands of the cause your claim to support, you may as well tear it down.  When you threaten to undermine your cause by doing its work form them because you somehow know better, you are in fact tearing it down.

 

When you come to a conference room with a cannon, bring your argumentative gun loaded with conclusion and thinly veiled threats to dangle, expect me to get defensive.  Anyone would when their livelihood is at stake.  What you offer isn’t unconditional support, it’s a demand for unconditional surrender.

 

Maybe if you didn’t ask for a minute and expect a mile, I’d be willing to help you.  But I no longer view you as a friend but as a threat.  Don’t expect favors from me anytime soon.  You just saw your opportunities fly out the window.