“If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life … for fear that I should get some of his good done to me.”
Henry David Thoreau
The air is thick with the scent of goodwill, as helpers, the modern-day missionaries, fan out across the globe, armed with knowledge and conviction, eager to reshape lives in their own image. Their intentions may be noble, but the path they forge is littered with unintended consequences. How often does help become a disservice, an inadvertent perpetuation of the very problems it seeks to remedy?