There can be a lot of debate around the word help, for we as humans, have a lot to do with it. First of all, we need it. Yes, you and I, we all need it. Then, there's the awkward ways to ask for it. We struggle so much with asking for help because it directly contradicts with our ego. But once we feel the need for it and muster the courage to ask for it, we then, against our early assumption, feel astonished as to how much of it is available, how much it's helpful, and how ready people are to help us. But even then, we feel reluctant to accept the available help. And sometimes we are offered help even when we've not asked for it, which only makes the receiving process more dubious and reluctant.
However, as humans, it is a hugely lovely gesture to finally… just accept help. It is a loving gesture not only from their side, but also from your side to them. Love is only love when shared - and then accepted. The reason I conclude as to why we are so rude and often ready to reject other people's help, in whichever form it may be, is because we think we are fully sufficient for ourselves and for the challenges of our lives - that we do not basically, need help. But that's your ego playing on you.
I'd once again quote this line that captures the very insufficiency of us human beings, who otherwise are so proud of being the best of all creatures: "I am a man (human), and that is reason enough to be miserable." We, the moment we are born, are transferred from a divine and perfect nothingness to this world full of miseries and demands. And against it all, we are constantly incompetent and thus, in need of help. While our early dependency on our parents and teachers may come natural to us, as we progress in our lives, we swiftly move from being so open to help on offer to pretending we are always tough and enough. And rightly so. A lot of factors may play into this damaging transition taking place: being rejected, being considered weak, being told we are enough - for everything!, being played by our ego and so on. But I will talk about these factors in another topic. For now, I want to show the magic of receiving the help that is always so generously available out there.
As we begin to take this small yet hugely difficult step of asking for help, not once but again and again, we then realize the importance of love: both its giving and its receiving. The pleasure you get when you accept someone's help, even when you may not need it, is transformational. You then, as you gradually practice it and make it a much needed behavior, transform yourself and your perspective around, inclusion, love, and interdependency. You finally, finally realize that receiving is not entirely about you - it's also about the person offering it. Once you accept their help with full heart and appreciation, you'd see their face glow; you've just given them a feeling of being important, a feeling of mattering, and a belief that they can help others as well.
Helping others is great and very essential, but what if nobody is ready to accept it? But you don't have to worry about it, because we always need it - and need it so badly. So while we show full enthusiasm for helping others, we should also practice the art of receiving help as well. Only then is this cycle completed. I believe accepting help has the same powerful impact, or even more because it makes the other person feel important and not you, as helping others. While helping others is a selfless act too, although it could be argued, receiving help, while it seems so selfish on the surface, is truly humane and selfless. As you receive help, you do two things: first you actually accept you need it, and then let them, another person however incapable, help you! Now that's generosity.
Receiving help also encourages us to help more. As we receive it and see the importance of it, we then offer help more and more it with courage and persistency; for we know that the other person badly needs it, but they are just not ready to accept it yet. It has that two-way effect: where you love and feel loved, and where you let yourself to be loved and you feel loved even more. Interdependency has, indeed, a much higher value than independency. We are all, endlessly, dependant people - we need to realize this, and I believe it is possible through finally starting to accept help.
Before I close, I want to leave some tips for you all on how and when to accept the helps on offer.
1: accept compliments, even if you feel like they are not meant. Sometimes they are meant, the speaker is just bad at making it sound real.
2: love yourself - your own self is trying to help you. Feel it! Accepting help is an act of self-love.
3: say you are welcome. Return the thank you's, and say more of them as well.
4: ask for it, be vulnerable. Even if the person is not helpful, they'd feel accompanied in their shortcomings.
5: let the claps, the hand-shakes, the smiles, the tears, and the praises reach to your heart - know you matter through other's appreciation.
6: it's all about self-love - as you accept help, you are actually loving yourself (which I know you are so bad at; but it's not too late).
7: and listen! Listen with intention and concentration. Try to see the eagerness for being heard behind their words; accept their knowledge and stories that they are sharing. Let them even brag. Speaking is helping, listening is the receiving of it.