HELP WANTED-Maybe—One of the Hardest Hurdles to reaching Peace AndJoy
In a few lines I am going to get to the very serious topic of how difficult it is to ask for help for some folks and maybe provide some ideas that have floated through my head lately.
For now, however, I have to say a thing or two about “real world”” observations on the lighter side of this topic.
“helper”…….Well last night we had Hamburger Helper for dinner. Now we have it from time to time and generally if it is put together right and you use the right pan etc. it tastes just fine and if you are hungry it tastes pretty good. Here’s the thing. I’m glad somebody realized that hamburger sometimes needs a small place for ulittle help. There is also “tuna helper” and yes tuna needs help too. Now what i’m wondering is was there a meeting where a group of folks sat around deciding what type of meat or semi-meat products were worthy of or needed help? Did these folks take a stack of post-it notes and paste them to a wall under categories like “Needs Help-Good enough with Ketchup or bbq Sauce, Doesn’t Need Help at all, and the dreaded nothing can help this.
For example T-bone steak doesn’t need a “helper (a little A1 sauce for some will do. Liver was in the nothing can help this category but in a stunning political move they stuck it together with onions thinking if you can eat liver then onions with it will make it sound complete and as long as your kitchen and breath are going to stink….let’s hook those two up. Turkey, ham, and chicken.. they’re good. No help needed there. Sausage and Bacon—they can help other things but they like going solo.
I guess I went through this whole rant to point out that somebody somewhere spent some time to say we value this meat as part of our society (except for sPaM they said if people eat this we can sell them anything) — but seriously.. somebody wanted to make it okay to admit a little help is in order and some effort would be made without shame or guilt attached.
So that brings this into focus. asking for and how to offer help are two of the most complicated human activities.
People want to feel independent and have been let down by promises a lot so asking for help can be both hard on one’s self esteem and have no practical value—even when it is probably needed or would be gladly offered by a person who could deliver on the promise
Offering help has its own set of complications. Some people offer help fairly often, however, there is an expected reward of being applauded for it, or even worse the help is offered in the spirit of “I know I’m better than you (at this and probably in general) and here’s a chance for me to show you and the world. we all know people who “help” for those reasons. There is also the I’ll help you because I know I am going to need something from you . Now there’s nothing wrong with interdependence and asking for help or a trade of assistance in one thing for assistance in another is a perfectly good concept in fact maybe you’ve heard of it in a simpler way…. It’s called sharing. You know you have a talent and someone else has a different talent and you both decide to share.
Okay before this gets too long I want to raise two questions—
Why do you help others?
and more importantly can we start with the question “is there any way I can work WITH you to get this task done? “With” is a powerful word in the equation of seeking peace and joy.
so the next time you want to assist —think about “why and with.
Those are important words on the path to Peace and Joy…
There is more to said about this topic… but I wanted to post this much today….
adn I’m still trying to consider a category for hot dogs—I have seen a lot of things “on a hot dog” that might be considred “helpers” but I’ve also seen just a dog —no bun, now mustard— go over just fine…… maybe it’s because they have that cool Oscar Mayer Weener-Mobile?
Have a Brilliant day. I don’t
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