TWO-STEP HELPING IS COOL
Monday, November 15, 2021
Asking for help is quite simply excruciating.
When we see it, we don’t recognize needing help because it is our nature to enjoy being ‘not in need of help.’
We live in a society that generally sees ‘those who need help’ as less worthy – so acknowledging the existence of need is the first and highest hurdle – comes with dread, denial, and stark recognition of how tall that hurdle …
Asking for help to open a door or lift something seems innocent enough, but for many, asking these things is akin to asking for help opening more doors and doing the heavy lifting – something we were all schooled not to do because it admits failure to be able to do it ourselves.
Someone you know needs help – and feels immobilized in terms of their ability to ask. Helping, then, takes two steps.
The first is to acknowledge and validate their struggle.
The second is actually helping.
One without the other is either platitude or pity – and, because it is, most people who need help don’t ask for help in a timely fashion, if at all.
Caring is excellent, platitudes are self-serving, and lectures are too, but actual helping is quiet, solid, and real – building bridges rather than living under them …
Anything else is something else.