Keep peace within myself

First keep the peace within yourself, then you can also bring peace to others. - Thomas a Kempis

I am struggling with my frustration with a friend.  He is doing very little to help himself and letting me and another friend do an incredible amount of work to sort out a major multi-year problem with his financial records and taxes.  I wonder if I am being used.  I wonder if I am being of service.  I wonder if I am being judgmental around him shirking his civic duties. 

I feel on edge about it.  We are so close to getting this finished.  I resent how much energy and space this is taking up in my head.  My own work is undone.  And I ask a simple thing like would you be willing to feed my cat for a couple days and he would rather not.  I can easily copy without his help. 

But what does this say about our friendship that I extend myself over and over and he does not, not for himself, not for me?  I think he is not in a place where he can do anything differently.  That must be the case.  And his other friend and I have done more than normal friends would do to be of help because we care and because we both need to be needed. We spoke at length, this other friend of his and me, last night.  Our stories are quite similar in some respects.  But she's been bailing him out on this financial record keeping for more than 10 years.  When she flat out said no she wouldn't do the manual labour of organizing all the records this time, he asked me.  And now she's doing the book keeping, with a mixed heart, just as I am cajoling him into getting the missing records we need. 

He keeps saying I am being patronizing or controlling or making him feel like an idiot.  I think he is being an idiot about this.  He has no sense of urgency or planning to get the project done.  It is like his friend and I care more about the project than he does.  And maybe that's true?  Maybe he really doesn't care that he is wasting limited financial resources, struggling more than he has to, and foregoing financial benefits to which he is entitled.  I find that really hard to understand. 

I am trying to practice acceptance.  At the same time, I would like to see this project done.  It is disrupting my own sense of well being.  I think I need to let go.  It makes me cry.  I feel resentful, angry, frustrated.  I don't understand his way of thinking or being in the world.  I need to focus on my own well being.

Blessed be.