This group of Rules has been about how to help other people. But it doesn’t hurt to point out that just because you can help someone, that doesn’t automatically mean you should. This isn’t always easy, because often you know that you can make a real difference in some way.

Look, it’s not just about the difference your actions make. It’s also about the way it makes the other person feel. Very often your help can be the thing that makes someone feel cared about, loved, worthwhile, grateful, wanted, that they can cope. And sometimes not.

There are other things they might feel instead of – or as well as – those things. They might feel patronised, belittled, helpless, childlike, beholden. They don’t want those feelings. Then again, neither do they feel comfortable rejecting you when you’re trying to be kind. (Unless they’re your teenage child, in which case they’ll be quite at ease with it.)

Whenever you offer help, you effectively invite the other person to take out a karmic loan with you. You are offering to become their karmic creditor, which means you are in a position of power over them. Yes, I know that wasn’t your intention. You just wanted to be helpful. I get that. But it makes no difference – that is simply the nature of the transaction.

That’s why some people don’t want you to do something that appears to make their life easier. If you look at it in that way, you should be able to understand the ‘I don’t want your help’ mentality. For a start, it should explain why your teenager doesn’t want your help, and indeed is happier than most to spell it out clearly (although we both know that tomorrow they’ll come asking you for money, a lift, an off-games note, more money …).

Most people will be grateful for a one-off offer of help from a stranger when they’re lost or fall over. Although if you offer to help an old lady across the road and she doesn’t consider herself an old lady who needs help, she may not appreciate it. Most old ladies are polite enough to decline civilly, but you need to hear what they’re saying.

We also have lots of relationships where the karmic balance tips back and forth so often that no one is counting. So long as the help goes both ways, that’s just what love and friendship are about really.

You might encounter more resistance – however politely expressed – from people who can never get back into credit with you: you often help them and there’s nothing you need that they can help with. This will be especially true if you already hold some kind of position of superiority over them. So don’t stop helping people, but do be conscious of how they respond, and understand why a few of them reject your offers. It’s not about you. It’s about how it makes them feel.