“I don’t like to ask for help.”
That’s what she told me today. Out of work. Heart problems. Great reasons to ask for help. But she waited.
And we can help with food and paper goods and toothpaste and razors. I can offer a phone number to someone else.
A couple weeks ago, someone else said, “I don’t like to ask for help.”
I said, “But you help all the time when you can, right?”
“Yes,” she said, “but…”
I know. I understand. I don’t like to ask for help either. I do my best to figure it out, whatever it is. In a learning styles inventory awhile back, I found that my learning style is “intrapersonal.” I learn inside my head.
But I really like to help. I really like to figure out how to solve someone’s challenges, to answer questions, to think about how something can be done. And both of the women that I talked with are helpers, too.
So why do we like to help and not like to ask for help? I can’t speak for anyone else, but for me it’s about pride. Helping makes me feel good, asking makes me feel beholden.
But sometimes, we can’t do it alone. Sometimes we must ask for help. And sometimes the sooner we ask, the less deep we get.
Yet I am poor and needy;
come quickly to me, O God.
You are my help and my deliverer;
O LORD, do not delay.
There’s no particular time this is in his life. It could have been many. And David was often, I think, alone. Shepherds are, of course, but so are kings and generals. And they are pretty independent. But David knew that all the stuff doesn’t keep you from poor and needy.
So ask.
300 words a day 
Bruce Nunnally
Asking for help makes us feel vulnerable. It is hard to do.
Accepting help makes us feel loved, but perhaps at a time when we don’t feel worthy of being loved.
A 2010 TedxHouston talk by Dr. Brené Brown suggested that forming real connections with other people depends on allowing ourselves to feel vulnerable — perhaps in order to allow for the possibility that the connection will fail.
I was surprised to discover a simple fact in my work: We enable others to ask for and receive help when we are able to gracefully do so ourselves.
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Chuck Weinberg
I must admit that I am a much better giver than receiver. I have told our pastors many times to be gracious receivers, but I like to be the giver and that is not right.
I does also seem like when one is very hospitable that often they get invited less and that is sort of strange to me. I will not judge you for the way that you are hospitable to me based on my ability to be hospitable.
We love others in this way, but we must let them love us in return. Thanks for the post.
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Tino Paz
Asking for help is a humbling experience, especially in our society where we laud independence and pulling ourselves up by the boot straps. Fortunately, though, asking for help is easier than we think – trying dialing the three digit code “2-1-1”. Although it currently isn’t available everywhere, it is a growing movement that’s available to over 85% of the population by landlines and many cell phones. If for whatever reason “2-1-1” isn’t working in your area look up the 10-digit alternative at http://www.211.org.
Over 16 million US residents used the “2-1-1” service in 2010 to help. The call is free (although cell phone rate may apply).
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Jay Johnson (@lesschaos)
Accepting help means admitting that we have a problem, one we can’t solve ourselves.
It’s much easier to go fix other peoples problems. That way we can deny all the problems in our own lives.
In the worst case, we can be addicted to it. Constantly looking for the next fix, the next person who ‘needs’ our help. You could lose your buzz, then have to turn to working on your own life.
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