Have we ever put ourselves in a difficult situation by being stubborn? Have we ever approached a task knowing that we have it under control although we have no experience to believe that? How many times have we been on a journey towards something humble enough to share our tribulations but not modest enough to listen to the opinions that follow? Yes, we all do this. It is a weird fight going on internally. We acknowledge we are doing something wrong verbally, but can’t take the next step of changing our actions. Something inside is winning the fight of allowing us to turn on a help signal. We seem to need more assistance with listening to what the signal brings to us and acting. The truth is we don’t always have it under control. We don’t know everything there is to know. We need to follow these three words when we hit a wall. Others can help.
Automatically, we think of others not being able to understand our plight. We ask “can we trust others?” How could someone else possibly have an answer we cannot think of? It is not only possible, but probable. We have trusted ourselves all the way into a roadblock. Our knowledge can only take us so far. Our success begins to breed arrogance. It is a natural occurrence when we do not know to check these feelings. Imagine handling all tasks and issues alone for years. Life has shown us we got it. Actually, it showed us we had those. We took it upon ourselves to have that success grow into an attitude of “we can handle any and everything.” We should be appreciative of our success. We should see it as being fortunate. Life is now attempting to show us we are not alone for a reason. The longer it takes to realize this, the longer we will suffer unnecessary grief and failure. Why sign up for that?
How do we deal with this shortcoming of knowing when to allow assistance from others? Ideally, after a couple of failures attempting to do it alone. We always want to do “it” ourselves so allow the possibility of figuring it out, but limit the attempts because accomplishing a task and getting to the next one is of more value than spending a year to complete a task that could have taken three months. We will be able to adopt asking for help when needed by removing our worries.
One worry is the potential of others failing to understand our issue. We are not the only ones living life. Many of us share the same trails and tribulations. The luxury of reaching out to others is the ability to speak with someone who has been through our issue. They have experience and answers we don’t have. They have ideas of what may help us. If we allow ourselves to share our problems, we should attempt to share them with the goal of gathering ideas that may help. One perk of reaching out to others is we can find people who have been through what we are experiencing at various ages. Yes, taking advice from a younger person may be another battle in itself, but if we desire to move forward this is just another problem we must conquer.
Another problem is trust. The easiest method to deal with trust issues is to pay attention to who you decide to share your issues. If we are comfortable enough to raise the “flag” with these people, we should give them a chance to help us. We’ll win twice. We’ll grow as people by acknowledging we are not alone and don’t need to do everything as a solo act. The second win is in overcoming staying stuck on our journey because we refused to take action after speaking up.
In closing, this piece is titled “Others Can Help” because of those of us who refuse to remove the mystery. The mystery is the word “can”. Others help, it is as simple as that. We must stop adding unneeded pressure to our lives. Yes, it is cool to handle things on our own. It is even cooler knowing if you are unable, there are others ready, willing, and able to help.
Food for thought. You do the dishes!
