Asking For And Accepting Help
If you’re like me, you once spent an afternoon blindfolded, trying to escape a giant web of at least three different types of rope, while the other trainees stood by, waiting for you to say a magic word. They had each said it, and in fact, the entire point of the exercise was to get used to saying this word. We would be working together in our mountain retreat for a while and being able to count on one another was vital. I can be quite stubborn though, and struggled that entire afternoon to say, “help”.
For what I’m sure are some deeply psychological reasons that I’m sure my wife would love to discuss further, I am very bad at asking for help. It’s something I have worked on over the years, but I’m embarrassed to say my pride still gets in the way too often. I’ve been able to achieve a lot of things relatively unaided, so when I find myself needing assistance, it calls all of that into question. As I said above, I can be stubborn and often will persist even when failure has become the only option.
If there’s one thing I’m worse at than asking for help, it’s accepting help. Specifically, I struggle to accept help that I did not ask for. I have a gut reaction that has turned me into a profoundly unpleasant person to be around a time or two. Admitting you need help is one thing, but having someone else see your weakness, your inability to deal with it, and then saving you is a level of vulnerability that makes my skin crawl. Many a time a fellow human has offered me kindness and my lesser self has replied with frustrated anger.
(It probably says something about me that the kindness of strangers is what brews anger within me.)
That being said, I can think of several situations where my progress would have been hindered by the help of others. If I didn’t achieve something on my own, it wouldn’t have meant as much. Maybe someone wanted to help, but wasn’t qualified, and would’ve hurt the project. I didn’t ask for and/or accept help and it was the right decision.
Ideally, we would all being willing and able to help and accept help from our fellow human beings. It is rarely that simple though, so I’d like to offer four quick reminders for both accepting and offering help. I need to remind myself of these guidelines all the time and putting them in print seemed like a good way to do that.
1. Sometimes we need to be helped. With the exception of Bear Grylls, nobody can do everything. Accept those moments because ignoring them just means you’ll be stuck blind in the web all afternoon. Also, getting help the one time, likely means you won’t need it next time.
2. Sometimes we need not to be helped. There are moments when we need to stand on our own. Embrace those moments and trust yourself to get through it. (And don’t be a jerk when someone tries to help.)
3. Sometimes we need to help. The intrinsic joy in an altruistic act is well documented. In some of my darker moments, the only light I found was showing kindness to others. Sometimes the best thing you can do for yourself, is to do something for someone else.
4. Sometimes, we need to not help. If you have offered help and it has been refused, accept it. We all want to be helpful, but sometimes we can help best by stepping aside.
