Be Stingy With Your Silver Platters: How to Spot a Person that Doesn’t Deserve Your Help



Helping people is essential to living a healthy, whole, and complete life. I firmly believe that. I also believe that those of us who have an innate burning desire to help people are meant to. However, we need to focus our efforts on people who appreciate our help. Sometimes we don’t realize we are constantly helping an ungrateful person until we’ve wasted inordinate amounts of time and money. So, how do I spot those people, you might ask? Ungrateful people have five distinctive qualities that grateful people do not exhibit.

Strap on your seatbelt. It’s soapbox time! Here are the five signs to look for when you suspect you’re dealing with an ungrateful person.

First Sign

They lie. They lie to you about wanting advice for the sole purpose of getting your attention. They have no plans of taking your advice. Advice is not what they’re seeking. Attention is what they’re seeking, or something tangible.

Second Sign

It’s never about you. It’s always about them. Every conversation is about them and what you can do for them. They never ask how you’re doing because they don’t care. You’re a resource and nothing more. This may sound absurd, but they probably don’t even know what you actually do for a living. Ask them.

Third Sign

They bring drama and chaos. When they walk into your space, it’s suddenly corrupted with a strange energy that interrupts your peace. You begin to dread seeing these people because they bring down the whole room’s energy, and they never know this because they have zero self-awareness.

Fourth Sign

Boundaries are violated. These people feel entitled to your energy. When they approach you, they bark orders instead of being polite and asking how you’re doing.

Fifth Sign

They might say “thank you” out of pure obligation. They might apologize for using and abusing you, but their apologies are like them, fake. Apologies mean nothing without changed behavior.

Be Stingy With Your Silver Platters

If you hand someone a silver platter, and they say, “Just sit it down over there. I’ll pick it up later,” politely excuse yourself and give it to someone who appreciates it.

The Law of Giving and Receiving is real. The more you give, the more you receive, but when you focus on giving to an ungrateful person, you risk two things happening:

Someone that really needs help and would appreciate it misses out. Helping someone who is grateful for your help has the power to change the trajectory of that person’s entire life.

Helping an ungrateful person will eventually cause you to feel resentful. Harboring resentment for extended periods will eventually manifest in poor health, such as physical ailments and disease.

So, don’t be handing out your expensive silver platters like bologna sandwiches at a picnic.

I wrote this article for those of us who deal with askholes, and I hope it helps bring awareness to these people. And if you made it all the way to the end, thank you. Please visit paulaswope.com sometime and signup for my newsletter while you’re there.