Growing up, I liked to do things independently and I still do. I hate asking for help when it comes to the big things in life. Despite learning time and time again that you cannot physically do the big things in life on your own, I somehow programmed myself to automatically do things by myself and ask for no help.
When you're someone who is prideful, like me, it is difficult to ask for help when it comes to everything in life such as performing a task at work, moving, completing an assignment, moving the 17 grocery bags from the car, and so on. It's difficult because you want to be independent, you want to prove yourself, you want to be successful on your own.
This past year of college, I learned to unteach myself in my ways of "let me do this on my own" because I had no other option than to sit and ask for help. As I continued to grow in my church community and college community, I began making friendships that will last a lifetime.
As the year progressed, life continued to throw curve balls every which way at me. Life was in full swing and I wanted to do everything and anything on my own. I do not know who I was trying to prove myself to, but I definitely took some losses in trying to do things on my own. My anxiety, migraines, panic attacks increased greatly.
I was sitting at my church group one day and discussed how stressed I was about life, things I had to do, and so on. As I began my laundry list of minor inconveniences to major inconveniences of my life, my group began to ask how they can help. I was puzzled. Help? Me needing help? I am not some walking Beetles song asking for charity.
But as I sat back, I realized, hey you cannot do this on your own. And then I began to realize a simple lesson, yet hard one, - it is okay to ask for help. It is okay to seek shelter. It is okay to seek a friend. It is okay to admit you're struggling. It is okay to wave the white flag.
Sometimes when you live a prideful life, you sort of realize you're becoming the line in the Dear Evan Hansen song: "Does anybody have a map. Does anybody happen to know how the hell to do this? I don't know if you can tell but this is me just pretending to know....'Cause the scary truth is I'm flying blind and I am making this up as I go."
However, when you surround yourself with good, wholehearted people, a community, you do not have to do this on your own. You have to swallow your pride and just ask. When you live your life in community with others, where you scratch their back, they will definitely scratch yours. You just have to stop that self-talk of "I can do this on my own" or "they probably won't help me if I ask". Cause you will turn out to be wrong.
