Asking & Accepting Help

I remember growing up, watching the adults and role models around me. The foundation for what I thought was how I was supposed to act. If I wanted to be a man in life there were things I needed to come to terms with. Not expressing emotion, being strong, and always being dependable. That was, actually, the key word of my youth.

“If you're dependable you’ll get the chances you need. Because people will rely on you.” I fell so deep into the concept. Because if you're dependable then people will like you. More opportunities, more growth - yadda yadda. So that’s who I was, my dad seemed dependable, having unlimited friends and people who just enjoyed his presence. But the one thing I saw that his friends didn’t was the aftermath. How drained he was. It must have been exhausting putting up a front because that’s just “how it is, or should be?” It couldn’t be me. It was for awhile, but never again.

I learned the same as any kid. Mimicking. I was a mini version of my dad. (It was always pointed out by his friends) I thought my dad had the life and I wanted it to. But that lifestyle is not maintainable. I fell into a deep depression due to inferiority. I was told the simple words that would bring me balance that I was searching for. “Confidence. It’s all confidence. Just do you.” So easy on paper. It’s 10 letters but that one word is something that took me years to understand.

Sadly confidence isn’t something that can only be acquired. It’s a series of steps that equate to confidence. But this is starting from a point of having no confidence at all. So it’ll take a bit of introspection of where you’re at.

For me it started with asking for help. I knew I was drowning. I wanted to kill myself (I know. This got heavy) because holding up what I considered the world was too much. But asking for help is considered weak. And something I despised was the idea of being weak. But the truth is. Humans are weak. We are a weak species, which is just a fact. You could trip and fall the wrong way and destroy a part of your body, if not your life. Which is how I was then able to accept that people do need help. And the only way to get it is to ask. If you're silently starving outside a restaurant you're definitely not going to get food, no harm or shame in asking.

And that’s the big start. Because asking and accepting help are the same thing. When you want help or need help. Ask. And then actively tell yourself you asked for help, and that’s what the individual is offering. Again, we are rewriting our ways of thinking. This requires actively thinking about our own thoughts and perceptions of yourself. Next will be understanding how to take good advice from any situation. Because everyone has at least one valid idea to offer the world.

If you find yourself struggling to still ask for help that’s ok. Ask yourself for help, in asking for help. We all start from somewhere, and it’s better to start from nothing than to not start at all.