Let me preface by saying, I have my SUV all set up with a bed and a kitchen and all the amenities I need to camp out in the woods. I like it that way I’m enjoying myself I see no reason to change.
A couple of times I have mentioned that when seeing a doctor and the next thing I know, here comes the social worker with a stack of papers. I tell them that I’m doing fine. That I like how I’m living. I didn’t ask for any unsolicited help. And they don’t seem to listen at all. At some point they just leave me with a bunch of paperwork in a huff. I don’t understand why they get so upset just because I don’t want their help.
Social workers are typically people who love to help people, it gives their life meaning and purpose. They have helped numerous people in rough situations get a comfortable living situation and have no further need of assistance and every time they are over the moon with joy for what they have been able to do for that person.
They meet people who genuinely need help that they can provide and are turned down because of pride/humiliation. Some of those people just need them to be persistent for their help to be accepted.
It must be so soul crushing and demoralizing to have someone you believe you can help tell you to take it on the arches.
While you don’t need their help and are happy living as you do, they think you do need their help and won’t accept it. Your radical freedom breaks their well-meaning, but misguided, hearts.
I’m not trying to crush anybody.
You are just trying to live your life and it is so unimaginable an existence that it is incongruous with their concept of a comfortable life.
There is nothing wrong with your life, so long as you are happy and healthy. There is nothing wrong with their concept of a comfortable life. Both are shaped by notions derrived from life experience and personal prioritizations and either party cannot hold the other to be worthwhile without a greater understanding of the individual.
Hurting someone else’s feelings is an unavoidable truth in living a radically different path that they do not understand.
The best you can do for them is to try and help them see that their path is not the only one. Help them to understand your needs are met and you respect their path.
Next time, you can try to help them understand that they can offer nothing of value that will make your life better for you and give them an opportunity to understand you are whole in your path. Ask them what they want your life to be like, what your life is lacking, what they can do for you, and address each of their points with salient and cogent arguments that express your contention in your life’s circumstances.
If their best efforts have no value to you, help them understand that, if you don’t want to hurt their well intentioned efforts.
That does seem like a nicer way of saying it