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Enduring COVID taught me a valuable lesson about asking for help. I want to become better at receiving it and giving help to others, too.
I got a little pushback from parents on my recent post about living alone with COVID. They said they, too, struggle with asking for help. While the challenge may be more universal than I’d previously thought, I think it’s more problematic for those who don’t have kids, especially singles.
Here’s why: Most of us without kids don’t have experience asking other parents to help out with the kids, lead a scout troop, or step up to coach the soccer team. We don’t seek babysitting recommendations or ask if we can bring our kids over while we attend to an important, unanticipated need.
Often accused of being fiercely independent, most non-moms I know prefer to summon their inner Wonder Woman over inconveniencing a loved one.
But that strategy is just silly. And as time goes by, fierce independence might become hazardous to our health. It’s a rare elder who doesn’t need assistance.
There’s more to it than simply mustering up the gumption to ask a favor. I wanted more convincing from the experts about why it’s important.
I needed to look no further than my own backyard. Psychology Today’s pros have lots of practical advice and rationale to offer:
- In his blog “Passion!” Gregg Levoy points out that asking for help makes us vulnerable—and that’s a good thing that reinforces our basic humanity. He goes on to say that refusing to ask for help is a kind of arrogance and conveys the message that we don’t think anyone can really help, that we’re the only person capable of performing to our satisfaction.
- Joan Rosenberg writes that she considers asking for help an important route to developing emotional strength. Recognizing you need help and seeking it shows resourcefulness, she says, is a key component of emotional strength, not emotional weakness.
- Contrary to what we might think, asking for help isn’t a burden on others. Rather it’s a way to demonstrate that we can accomplish much more by including others in solving our conundrums. It acknowledges and celebrates both the independent and dependent sides of our nature. Deborah Serani tackles common myths that keep us from seeking support from others. By protecting ourselves from letting others know what we really need, we’re building our own fortresses of social isolation. No way that’s healthy.
So a few single friends and I formed a sort of mutual aid pact. One mentioned that it took her over an hour and two buses to get home after dropping off her car at the shop. Thanks to the pact’s terms, I called out her non-compliance and told her I’d be driving her back to the shop when her car was fixed. She reluctantly accepted.
Since dropping her off, we’ve often laughed at how easy it was for us both. Yet when I reciprocated and asked her a few weeks later to care for a couple of houseplants when I was away, I found it almost impossible to open my mouth and ask. I did it anyway.
That simple exercise was fortified after I came down with COVID. A friend’s offer to pick up my prescriptions was both helpful and surprisingly touching. I asked a neighbor I barely know to drop a few garbage bags at my door after I realized I was out. Another responded with a hearty yes when I asked her to water my garden.
Just like any other muscle, there’s no way to build strength by asking for help without just doing it. We get in our reps, and one day asking will surely become less painful.
