For a week I was a counselor at Camp to Belong, which is dedicated to reuniting biological siblings who are separated in the foster system. As I talked to one of my campers about a problem with her sister, I accidentally slipped out the phrase, “I can fix this.” She looked at me with tears welling in her big eyes and quietly said, “You can’t fix it.” And she was right.
I wasn’t there to fix anything, and I knew it. I knew I was there to maybe put a band-aid or two over wounds that broke open so they could keep moving. I knew I was there to help them create memories with their siblings. But I wasn’t there to fix anything. Arguments and fights were often symptoms of problems I will never know about, problems that are not my business to solve. My job was to bandage symptoms, not heal wounds.
We are all broken people. This brokenness manifests in different ways in everyone. In myself, it is in fixing other people’s brokenness. Maybe I hold naïve hope where if I can fix others’ problems, I can fix my own. Maybe it’s a symptom of my perfectionism. Maybe I just enjoy having control. Whatever it is, it can put my mental health and relationships at risk. When people vent to me, I tend to try to find solutions. When I see a problem, I try to take care of it. But I cannot fix everything. None of us can.
The problem with fixing isn’t the intent behind it; often, it comes from a genuine care for others. But it prioritizes the mental health and needs of others above your own. Being a fixer ignores one’s own self-care for the sake of people you care about. As a result, co-dependent relationships, aggravation, emotional exhaustion, and burnout can occur.
Here’s the reality: We can help people heal, but we cannot fix them.
Whether you are accustomed to trying to solve every logistical issue and handling everything on your own, or you dedicate yourself to being an emotional dumpster for others, it’s time to stop. Stop trying to fix everything. It will drive you mad when you continue to see the problems around you building up, and your ability to handle them deteriorating. It will break your heart every time you see someone cry and you can’t bring them to a place of contentment. It will diminish your sense of worth when you fail.
You don’t have to fix everything. In fact, as that little camper told me, you can’t. You are not here to stitch up people’s hearts and tend to the wounds of their souls. Take care of your brokenness, and support others in their efforts to care for their own, but do not pull out that needle and thread every time the people you care about get a small nick on their hearts. Don’t get so caught up in gluing others back together that you don’t realize you’re cutting up your hands on their broken pieces.
