Help Is Not Weakness, It’s The Refusal To Quit
Helping is not the admittance of weakness. It’s the refusal to quit. We often have confused kindness for weakness. That does not have to be true. Asking for help is perfectly acceptable. Accepting a helping hand could be all the difference. Even the simple gesture of showing support for another could be enough for them to keep trying.
Now let’s use a crazy example to fly off the rails quickly. I’ll admit I’m a fan of American Dad!. The program is a perfect mix for me to fall asleep. It’s funny enough I’ll stay up, nonetheless lame enough to lull me to sleep. There is an episode “A Jones for a Smith.” It’s my favorite rewatchable episode. The main character (Stan Smith) thinks he has found a cure for his cold with a vape inhaler. The inhaler is given to him by a man dressed in a soiled, green suit on a park bench. He leaves this meeting addicted to crack.
Throughout the episode, he refuses to ask for help until it’s clear that he’s just a stubborn prick and has lost control of the situation. He breaks into the neighbor’s house to steal a priceless/worthless Daytime Emmy. The police arrive. There is a whole hostage deal. Stan negotiates a plane to Mexico. The scene shoots forward; Stan is homeless and strung-out after losing everything. Helpless, in an alley, a small child tries to mug Stan. The kid fails and sees a family come by and ask to help rob this man. Stan disappointedly chimes in, “Asking for help is so weak, it’s pathetic.” The older man says, “You need to kick.” Stan immediately starts losing. Stan pleads for a moment stating, “It’s a crutch, it will make the kid weak.” Another woman steps forward, “He needed help and he asked. Shoes are valuable. Don’t forget to take his shoes.” The kid thanks the others for help and runs off with a set a plane keys and shoes. But this is the moment Stan finally understands the importance of asking for help. He says, “You helped him…and it didn’t make him weaker, it made him a better thief.” Suddenly, he understood how he could be helped and accepted that others could make him stronger for it. He gets help and the episode ends with the standard equilibrium to start the next 22-minute show.
If that was too much, there is a quote from Letterkenny. The main character often says, even begrudgingly sometimes, “When a friend asks for help…You help.” Trying to understand this more has led itself to a few ideas.
1. It’s okay to ask to help a struggling person. Ask a direct question implying what they are trying to achieve. If they say yes, then help. If they say no, respond with you understand and just leave them there. We don’t know fully what another person is going through. You don’t have to be a superhero to everyone. (Yes, I love hero stuff, but I know when I’m not useful.)
2. If you struggle to reach your goal, find someone trying something similar and ask to help them achieve it and learn from them along the way. Don’t worry about your goal and try to understand how others see the issue overall. You might be missing something easy.
3. Learn to do nice things unconditionally. If you don’t get a wave letting someone merge on the highway, let it go, forgive, and move on. Learning to do things unconditionally is hard. We normally want something for our efforts. A reward or acknowledgement, nope. Don’t expect a response. Don’t ask for it directly. You may be surprised that your small act, helps to get another person to start a small act of kindness to another. It might be nothing or maybe they remember forever. I’m still learning that help might not always need an action, but a supportive “I believe in you” speech may uplift other to try again or do it for the first time.
4. If you don’t know something, ask more questions. Who does this well? Who else tried this? What’s online about it?
