Who Are You Really Advocating This For?

This is another inspired by the “For Better or For Worse” comic Strip by Lynn Johnston. This one has their 3 or 4 yr old boy still wanting a dog and mum still saying no, so dad goes into bat for the dog, saying, “What’s wrong with getting the kids a dog, Elly?” To be told, “They’re not responsible enough.” To which he replies, ‘ But they’d learn! …. A dog would provide entertainment and exercise… They’re loving and smart and …” Only to be told, “JOHN, we are not getting a dog for the Kids!!!” To which he plaintively replies, “But what about me?!!!!” Making it very clear it wasn’t the kids he was really thinking of, but of himself.
Very funny in a comic, but not so funny in real life sometimes is it, when people say and do things on your behalf, when in fact they are only interested in their own returns, and often you end up the bunny of their so-called intercessions on your behalf, don’t you?
How often have you heard someone say, “Well I only did it for them, because that is what THEY wanted, to have yourself or the other someone, say, but that is not what I really wanted at all, but had pushed on me by them?”
So when you go into bat on someone else’s behalf, (which by the way, if done properly and for the right reasons, is a good thing! A real good thing in fact!) do it for the right reasons and not for your own benefits and motives. Yes when you are tempted to advocate for someone make sure it is they and only they that you are advocating for, with no ulterior motives of your own. Or at least make them quite clear from the outset, so that there are no doubts as to what your intention is. Again that is my view! What say you?