Ask for help and be surprised

I read online today that Gen X, of which I am a part, never ask for help.

It made me think - is this really me? Do I never ask for help? Sadly, it often takes someone holding up a mirror, even with levity, to see the truth. As a habit, I do not ask for help.

And even that phrase is interesting, ‘as a habit’ I.e. in practice, day to day. Asking for help is not something I do with regularity.

Now if I’m in a tight spot where clearly I need to get out of a hole, then yes. I do call breakdown recovery when my car stops at the side of the road. I don’t try and just battle on. But these examples are few and far between and are even biased because I pay for this service up front - of course I’m going to use it.

So maybe I only ask for help when there’s a clear expectation that I will be served in return. A transaction to be called upon rather than a vulnerable, genuine, ask for help.

Why is it that people struggle to ask for help, Gen X or otherwise? I’m sure societal expectations nowadays with the #ageoftheindividual and an entitlement culture means that by their nature, people want to help themselves rather than others. Perhaps it’s also the demonising of those who need help - the ‘scrounger’ label or that it’s all a bit woke to offer equitable treatment to those that need something different from the mainstream.

But I simply don’t believe it. Just because it isn’t practised doesn’t mean it’s not valuable, essential in fact.

I reflected that I did ask for help this week. And it was a BIG ask of a speaker that I had just met at an event. I asked for them to share their expertise and perhaps even their ideas on how I could solve a problem I was grappling with. They responded without hesitation; a resounding yes. So why was this so easy for me to ask and why was it a willing yes to help without a moment’s hesitation?

In this case it was because the problem I was grappling with, wasn’t to serve me, it was to help someone else. Help me to help this other group. Essentially I was asking for her to partner with me in helping another set of people.

But it helped, to get this support, to hear this positively from someone else, not the “yes… but” that I expected to hear. And maybe that’s enough for now. To practice asking for help with a mindset of that help being in service of others.

I know one day I will need to ask for help, and it will be for me personally. By then, I’ll be ready.