Neighbor helps 70-year-old lady with groceries, but puts her foot down after demands get out of hand: 'It started feeling like a job...'

What started as a kind gesture for a neighbor ended up feeling like a part-time grocery job.

At first, everything seemed simple and manageable. A kind weekly favor doesn't cost much. Why wouldn't you help an elderly neighbor who clearly needs it? Maybe it doesn't take much effort on your part, and you're really helping someone. Maybe you just want to do your good deed for the day. That's fine. It's great to help others, but what happens when someone starts to forget it's a favor and slowly starts to expect more than they should?

Things can get more complicated. People sometimes overlook the fact that you're helping out of kindness and cross the line, acting as if they have the right to demand things you have no obligation to do. At that point, a favor no longer feels like a good deed; instead, it starts feeling more like pressure. 

That's what happened to one kind neighbor who offered to do grocery shopping for an elderly woman living upstairs. I'm not saying this was intentional, but the dynamic clearly changed. Maybe receiving that help became the new normal, so the lady started relying on her neighbor a little too much. Or maybe she assumed she wasn't asking for much and didn't realize she was becoming a bit demanding. Especially considering they weren't even related. For a simple neighborly favor, her requests were getting more and more specific, so helping her didn't feel so simple anymore.  

Maybe the elderly lady didn't mean any harm, and maybe the helper simply reached her limit. Being helpful is admirable, but it shouldn't come at the cost of feeling stressed or unappreciated. Still, was stepping back the right move? Or should the helper have spoken up first?