The Art

The thing about helping people is that you are a proxy for change. A prostitute for change, I suppose. They must be derived from the same root.
Like Derren Brown. He does a card trick and it is a miracle, but when he gives you the cards and gets you to do the same effect and stands back, well then miracle is too small a word.

If you are a doctor and you give the patient the tools to get better, not just pretend that you are the answer (or you are the tool!) then you're doing the best possible thing.
The subject sequences their own success. There are negotiating their own way.
They're getting better and the only person they have to really credit is themselves.
Is there any better success than that?
A success unencumbered by gratitude or, in the UK at least, cost.

And of course you as the instigator can sit there perfectly.
Perfectly ungratified.
Perfectly poor. Well, not really poor but compared to the level of achievement...

And because of the nature of the work you maybe frequently abused, insulted, invited for a fight, oh... and occasionally killed, if not you then a colleague, well… maybe this is warfare, after all.

Maybe this is what Sun Tzu was on about.
Maybe those of us cowards who've chosen a sedentary role and even shied at its claims that it is vocational.

Maybe.

Maybe some of us are soldiers after all.