Be brave enough to accept the help of others.--Melba Cosgrove
Simple question here, but answer it honestly: who seems cooler?
- The person who solves the problem on his or her own, or
- The person who solves it with the help of a friend?
Got your answer? Awesome, thanks for playing!
It seems like everything in society today points to answer #1 being correct. Take movies for example, do you remember that action movie where the main character and his partner figured out where the bad guy's camp was at the same time? And then they set a plan to go get him and started to leave together but, surprise!, the main character somehow ditches his partner? His comrade. His friend!
Can you think of the movie? Sure you can because its pretty much all action movies! We laugh whenever that scene takes place as though it was somehow unavoidable but definitely acceptable. We don't need our hero saddled with a sidekick, he'll be just fine on his own.
Just as this scene is all too familiar in movies, it's also very familiar in real life as well. When we are challenged, our first instinct is to figure it out ourselves. It makes us feel good when we have all the answers and, of course, that means that we must always think we do. So what happens when we run into trouble? We try it our way.
Why? Because we have to. It's as if were hard-wired to be independent and sort it out on our own. There's a popular proverb that says Pride cometh before the fall, and yet, even after hearing that, we seemingly have to give ourselves the benefit of the doubt. Let's say for a second that it isn't some desire to be a hero; what else could it be? Perhaps some of this is about not wanting to be a burden on others. If we created the mess, it must be unfair for us to make someone else help cleanup.
It's on me, we say.
I've got this, we decide.
I must go it alone, we think.
How sad would it be if that was really the case for all of our relationships? What if we really couldn't ask for help out of a rut? Thank goodness thats not true! As the ancient saying states, a friend in need is a friend indeed. Our true friends are not the ones who we see when things are going well, but instead are the ones we see when things arent. When something has gone wrong and we are in trouble, we can call on our friends for support and trust that theyll be there. But see there are the two key elements: we have to call and we have to trust. If we don't call them, how will they know we need help? And if we don't trust them, how will we call?
What are we trusting them with? Ourselves. We are opening up to them and showing that we are vulnerable. But that's ok, we're talking about our friends. These are the people with our best interests at heart, the people who want nothing more than for us to succeed. We want the same for them too, it's not just a one way street. These relationships didn't develop overnight, we've seen them grow over time. We know them. We trust them.
So what does this mean for us and how does it relate to accountability? As we are all (that's right,
all) fighting this battle together, we have to be brave enough to accept the help of others. Our brothers- and sisters-in-arms are right alongside us always, we just have to call.
And you know what? Sometimes we don't even have to call. Sometimes, just like in the movies, our friends come to our aide even when we didn't ask or didn't tell them how. We'd do the same for them, always.
