We all need a little help sometimes...

So I've been watching some tv shows that I love and some of the stories are very sad but also the reasons for why I do the things I do for myself, for other people, for life and people in general but what struck me today was two very important things...

1. It doesn't take much to go from being the top of the tree to scrambling on the ground hunting for shelter and food and even more for love, kindness and compassion....I mean those at the bottom of the tree are nobody's right? WRONG! They are you and me and so many other people. In one show this lady of great means went from having a marriage, a large house, being well recieved in affluent society etc to losing her husband to a younger woman, having the tax agency take all her things away because her husband had raked up so many debts to living on the street for three years and ending up with active Tuberculosis. She didn't see it coming. All it takes is a serious illness (physical or mental - I don't really differentiate the two), or losing your job or having an extra unplanned kid (no matter how much they're loved) or being kicked out of housing and being unable to secure future housing....so many reasons why you can go from the top of the tree to the bottom in 10 seconds flat. You don't even see it coming...

But this all brings me to point number two...

2. We ALL need a little help sometimes. In Western society in general we have this concept of individualism that runs rife. That to be success and be "okay" you should be independent. Making your own decisions, not relying on anyone for help, not asking for anything, not accepting help when its offered...those crazy things are prized. When you're laid low for whatever reason you can let your pride get in the way and get sicker and eventually die, or you have to swallow the pride and started both asking for and accepting help. Now of course there are better ways and worse ways of asking for or accepting certain types of help. I think its really important to be area of loan schemes with extremely high (usually unattainable) interest rates, credit cards or people that are out to better themselves more than help the person they're with so sure we need to trust our instincts a bit...but at the same time those things and people we CAN trust, we should.

We're actually designed for RELATIONSHIP and that means a few things, that we're actually designed to be INTERDEPENDENT not independent and we're designed to both need help from people AND to provide help to people. Very rarely are there times when we cannot be doing both these things. But it does mean being honest and brave and saying that its OKAY to let someone help me and accept their offer. That we need to assume that people we trust aren't offering without meaning it (although sometimes people do), that we need to be careful of our own selves and offer what we can but not what we can't...

The reality is if we offer help we're seen as "good" if we take help we're demoted in the eyes of people, especially ourselves. But the reality is, when you accept help from someone else you are giving THEM the opportunity to be a part of something bigger then themselves, to step up to the plate and to be counted. Why shouldn't THEY be given those good feelings just liek you might feel when you are given the opportunity to help someone out? Similarly, we are humbled when we accept the help of others and that helps us learn a hell of a lot of compassion for those that are in consistent needs for different things because we realise that its not so easy to be helped or to admit that things are less than stellar. So either way, both giving and recieving help is a good thing.