Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the balance between being self-reliant and still accepting help when it’s needed. I’ll be honest. Sometimes I feel like I’m horrible at both. I feel like I rely too much on other people for specific things and yet I also know that I’m very reluctant to ask for help when I need it.
Recent Story
Late last year, I got a new ministering brother in my ward. He actually contacted me for a visit. The last time I’d had a ministering brother who contacted me was back when I was in a family ward, so it was kind of nice to have someone make an effort.
During the initial meeting, he volunteered to help me make a more effective resume. He told me to email it to him, and he’d help me out. While I agreed, I didn’t follow through. I wasn’t feeling too hopeful about him actually helping me. I figured if I sent him my resume, he’d look at it, maybe offer one comment, and then he’d check it off his list, having fulfilled his ministering assignment. Pessimistic? Okay, yes, maybe a little.
About a month or so later, my ministering brother mentioned to me that I had never sent him my resume to look at. He also mentioned that he knew of a job that I might be interested in applying for. I was a bit embarrassed. I knew it was his nice way of saying, “Hey, I offered to help. Are you really not going to accept my help?”
I did end up sending him my resume. He offered tips on the resume in general as well as tips on tailoring it to the specific job. I’m sure he spent several hours looking through it, fixing things, moving things around, and just making it better. While I appreciated the effort, I also felt a bit guilty. After all, he has a busy life. It wasn’t convenient for him to take the time out to help me. I didn’t want to take time away from other things that he needed to get done.
And the Story Continues
After he helped me fix my resume for the one job, he offered to help me if I needed help tailoring my resume for other jobs. To be honest, I’m very reluctant to accept his help. I want to believe that I can do this on my own. He helped me see how to go about tailoring my resume. I don’t need his help for every single job’s resume. I should just be self-reliant now and not just expect him to do all the work, right? It would just be a waste of his time, time that he could spend doing other things.
His parents are in their 80s. They recently moved to the area, and I know he’s helping them out a lot. I would hate to feel like he was helping me instead of helping them or like helping me was taking time away from something else that he needs or wants to do.
The Desire to Ask for Help
A few weeks ago, I felt like I needed a blessing. I won’t go into the particulars, but it had been an especially difficult and discouraging week. I felt like I was about two seconds away from completely falling apart. Part of it was that we were into about Week Four of the temple’s six-week closure. Without my weekly temple shift, my week was thrown off, and I wasn’t struggling to feel like I mattered.
While there are things that I can do on my own, I cannot give myself a priesthood blessing. I knew if I was going to get one, one of two things needed to happen. First, I could hope that someone was inspired to ask me if I needed one. I knew that wasn’t likely to happen. Second, I could ask for one.
The thing is that other than being set apart for a calling, it had been a very long time since I’d gotten a priesthood blessing. I think it was probably 2016. Why had it been so long? Mostly, there aren’t a lot of people (meaning pretty much anyone) who I’m comfortable asking to give me a priesthood blessing.
I felt like I should ask my ministering brother for a blessing. I spent probably two days back and forth on this. Okay, I’ll ask him. No, I don’t really need one. Yes, okay, I’ll do it. No, hold off at least a bit longer. Just do it. Quit putting it off. No, I don’t want to bother him. You’re overreacting. You don’t really need a blessing. You can handle this on your own.
Finally Asking for Help
I finally sent a text and waited. It took him almost a day to respond. He had a legitimate excuse for taking that long. Still, as I waited for a response, I was convinced that I was right about not needing one. I was sure that he was so slow to respond because he knew I didn’t need one, and he hoped that if he didn’t respond, I wouldn’t ask again.
When he did respond, he quickly came over, and he was very understanding and nice about giving me a blessing of comfort. It made me wonder why I’d waited so long and been so reluctant to ask for one. Unfortunately, that now puts me in a place where I feel like I have to be careful about how much I use his generosity for at least a while. I don’t want to abuse it.
Why the Reluctance to Accept Help?
Yes, I realize that I have a messed up view of being self-reliant. Yet, I also don’t want to be a burden to people. I think we’ve all known that person who’s really needy. I’m not talking about someone who has a disability, so the person needs extra help. I’m talking about the person who never seems to do anything on their own and who seems to feel like people should drop everything to help them. Maybe, you’ve never encountered that sort of person. If you haven’t, you are very lucky or way more patient with people than I am (or you are probably letting people walk all over you, and you may not even realize it).
I want to be someone who can do things on my own. I never want to be that person who when someone sees that they’re getting a text or a phone call from me, they think, “Oh no. What’s she want now?” I’d hope to never be that person who they’re talking about in ward counsel who they wonder what they can do to make me more self-reliant and less dependent upon everyone else to do things for me. I’d rather be the person doing things for others than the person depending on others to do things for me.
People are busy. They have things they need to get done. I never want to feel like I’m making others sacrifice their needs and wants because I’m demanding help NOW!
My Misguided Idea of Being Self-Reliant
Yes, I realize that I have a bit of a skewed view of being self-reliant. Logically, I know that allowing others to help me when I need help is an important part of my growth and their growth. Sometimes, though, I struggle a lot with seeing that line between being self-reliant to the best of my abilities and realizing when it’s time to accept help. Having helped others, I know how much of a blessing it can be to be of service to others. Yet, having helped those who abuse my generosity, I also know how stressful and difficult it can be to try to help someone who demands help with no consideration of my needs, wants, and time.
Of course, the examples I provided aren’t the only times I’ve struggled with the balance between doing things on my own to the best of my ability and allowing others to help me when needed. I feel like I’m pretty good about being willing to pray and ask for help from Heavenly Father, but I’m not so great at accepting the help He’s providing me when it comes from other people.
My Conclusion
Generally, in these types of posts, I like to come up with my own definition or explanation of the difference between the two concepts. The problem is that I’m not sure I know where the line should be drawn. I’m not sure how to balance the two. Logically, I realize that if I am concerned about abusing someone’s generosity, I’m highly unlikely to actually abuse it. Yet, I also know that those who are the most likely to offer help are also the ones the least likely to let me know if I’ve gone from being someone they are blessed to help into the territory of being someone who’s become a burden to them. In this case, I’m willing to admit I don’t have the answer.
