If You Really Want to Help Someone, Keep Your Thoughts and Prayers to Yourself

There’s a difference between what you think you do, what you say you do, and what you actually do.

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

Have you ever gone up to a homeless person on the street and said:

“I’m sorry for your situation. I’ll be thinking of you?”

If you think doing so would be ridiculous, well, you’re pretty much doing the same thing when you tell someone that you’re “sending them your thoughts and prayers.”

Showing someone you’re empathetic to their situation isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but if that’s the extent of your empathy, merely indicating that it exists, then you’re not really doing much.

When words mean nothing

Words always retain value, and you can’t entirely strip words of their impact and meaning.

But think of how much your words mean to someone in peril.

Specifically when you give them the words “thoughts and prayers.”

Knowing you’re in somebody’s “thoughts and prayers” doesn’t really mean much when you’ve lost everything.