Asking For Help Does Not Make One Weak

When I was in high school, Driver’s Ed was a required class, and I took it during the 2^nd semester of my 10^th grade year. After the class, I could have gotten my driving permit, but because I wasn’t willing to discuss things with other people, I didn’t. I took Driver’s Training during the 1^st semester of my 11^th grade year, and after the class, I could have gotten my driver’s license, but because I wasn’t willing to discuss things with people, I didn’t. When I finally went to the DMV to take the written test, so much time had passed since taking Driver’s Ed, and since I hadn’t studied, I failed the test twice. I passed the test a year later, but I went from possibly having a driver’s license at 15, to getting it a few months shy of 17; not a big difference, but a difference. 

During this same time, I had amassed enough credits to be able to graduate from high school one semester early. However, when I approached my counselor to tell her that I was ready to leave school, she asked me if I had taken the Civics class that was required for seniors. When I realized that I hadn’t, I was forced to return to school for an additional semester in order to take a single class. As it turned out, if I had spoken to my counselor before my senior year in high school, I would have known about the class, would have taken the class, and would have finished high school one semester early. 

The meaning of this is that young people often convince themselves that older generations are not able to relate to the modern times, and thus cannot offer advice or information that will help the current generation. The truth is that experience is a great teacher, and people who have experienced things can use those experiences as educational tools for the next generations. 

I always tell my children that they need to be willing to, and cannot be afraid to, ask for help. It is possible to learn things on one’s own, but at times, there will be a need to get answers from people who have information that we do not have, or who can give us insight into an unknown situation, like with my driver’s license. 

Asking for help does not make a person weak or inferior. In fact, the opposite is true. Greater strength is required when we admit that we do not know everything, and that help is needed, or that we simply need to speak to someone about our situation. Stewing in a vat of misinformation does not make us stronger. Asking for help shows strength, and receiving help when needed strengthens us even more.

Live Like a Child

Recently, I was in a shop where I needed to pick up some merchandise. The usual procedure here is that I have placed an order, and then I go to the shop, tell them about my order, they bring it to me, and then I sign for it and take it away. Anyway, when I arrived at this shop, there was a little girl there with her father and the girl couldn’t have been more than three or four years old. As soon as the little girl saw me, she greeted me with a very pleasant “hello”, and then, knowing that I would have to sign for my order, she reached up onto the counter in the shop and gave me a pen.

This interaction started me thinking that if more people lived and behaved like children, the world would be a much better place. Now, I am not referring to running around out of control in the name of playing, putting foreign objects into our mouths, and screaming and crying when we don’t get what we want or are told “no”. I’m talking about being pleasant as often as possible, being friendly with perfect strangers, and doing things for people because it is necessary without asking for anything in return. 

Clearly, not every child behaves like this little girl. Many children are either too shy to say “hello” to strangers, and many might not yet be able to grasp the idea of giving someone a pen because they know that the person will need to sign something. However, small children seldom behave maliciously towards others, and are usually less inhibited towards strangers than adults. Small children also nearly always have positive attitudes and are in good moods unless something is bothering them. People need to be happier, more pleasant and more helpful towards others. In other words, people need to be more like children and the world would be a better place.

Resist the Devil and He Will Flee (Excerpt from "Things I've Learned From the Word")

Peer pressure is something that we will all have to deal with, especially when we are believers and we associate with individuals who are not, or who might not believe on the same level as us. There will be times when our friends or relatives will attempt to get us to do things that we should not be doing, or go places that we should be going, but we have to have strength enough to not allow them to get us to do things that would not be pleasing to God. In essence, we should behave as if God is watching because he always is. 

There was a time in my life when, shortly after my mother had passed away, I had just become a legal adult, and I was trying to figure out life on my own. I had never gotten involved with smoking, drugs or drinking, and everyone close to me knew this. However, one day, someone close to me was smoking marijuana in my presence, and asked me if I wanted to participate. When I stated that I did not wish to, their response to me was that I should try it so that once I was alone in the world, and someone tried to pass off some artificial or harmful marijuana to me, I would be able to know the difference, as if it was a forgone conclusion that at some point, I would become a weed smoker just as they were. Fortunately for me, even though I did not have a relationship with God at that point in my life, I had the strength to refuse that person again, and through the grace of God, I can say that I have still never gotten involved with any substance habits. 

What we need to remember is that if we give in to temptation, or if we simply just say no to the occasion of the temptation, the devil will continue to follow us. If someone attempts to tempt a believer into doing something that goes against their beliefs, there is a difference between saying “no” and meaning “no”. If someone offers a non-smoker a cigarette, the non-smoker can say “no”, but the smoker could interpret that to mean “not right now” or “not today”. However, if the non-smoker replies with “no thanks, I don’t smoke” or “no, smoking can kill you”, then there is no way that the smoker can confuse the response with there being a chance that the non-smoker might smoke in the future. 

The same can be said regarding peer pressure and sex. If a young man is trying to pressure a young girl into having sex, or if a group of people is trying to coerce a person into having sex because ‘everyone else is doing it’, the person being tempted can simply say “no”, but as before, the answer could be interpreted as “not right now”, “not today”, or “not in front of all of you”. However, if the response is something along the lines of “the bible says that sex outside of marriage is a sin, and since my soul matters to God, it matters to me also”, then there is no way that this response could be confused for anything else. The point of this is that we must turn back temptation and live according to the will and the word of God.

With the Truth, The Story Never Changes

Often, when people talk to the same people time and time again, things that one person might have heard from another person during one conversation will be contradicted or disputed during a different conversation. This is because some people will tell whatever story they feel represents them the best at the time of the telling. The problem with this is that if people can remember what you said the first time, they will realize that you are not telling the same story the next time, which is why I have told my children that if they tell the truth every time, the narrative will never change.

People lie, there is no denying that. Sometimes people lie because they want to seem more important, and sometimes people lie because they do not want to have to discuss the truth. Still other times, people lie because they know that the person with whom they are speaking will not like or appreciate the truth (e.g., Does this dress make me look fat?). Whatever the reason, if we feel that it is necessary to tell an untruth, or if we tell untruths unconsciously, it is often difficult to retain the lies over time. It is because of this that many parents are able to know when their children are lying. The parent simply waits for the contradiction, and then refers the child back to the original conversation.

I have often told my children that if they tell the truth all of the time, the narrative will never change. If on one occasion a person says that they do not like a person of a certain race, their statement that they have no problem with people of that race becomes a direct contradiction of the previous statement. However, if they say how they truly feel and always speak truthfully about that issue, they will never be caught in a contradictory situation.

Telling the truth is something that should come easily because the truth is seldom something that has to be thought about or considered before it is told. A lie usually has to be crafted, unless the lie was prepared in advance. In many occasions, a person who was lied to will be angrier about finding out in the future that they had been lied to in the past than they would be if they had been lied to and had detected it immediately. This is why I have told my children that if they tell the truth all of the time, then the narrative never changes.

The "They" that is Holding You Back Might Actually Be "You"

Many times in our lives, both as children and as adults, we find ourselves in situations where we are not sure why the bad thing that has happened to us has happened. Often times, when we are at a loss for a logical explanation, we will simply say that “they” didn’t want us to succeed. However, what we need to ask ourselves is “they” really who we think it is.

I knew a young lady some years ago who was a very good worker with really good skills in her chosen profession. Whatever the job was that she was given, she could do the work expertly and quickly, but this was her problem. She would often be released from positions, but whenever she was questioned about her terminations; her answer would always be “they don’t like me on that job”. When I would ask her who “they” was, she would say “everybody on the job”, meaning the bosses, her co-workers and everyone else. I would try to explain that it was unlikely that everyone at the company disliked her personally, and the reality of the situation would often be much different.

After discussing the situation with her, I would discover that being highly skilled would allow her to complete her assigned work very quickly. However, once she was done with her work, she would sit at her desk with nothing to do until quitting time. When her supervisors would ask why she was not working, she would explain that she had finished her work and that no one has assigned her any new work. When the supervisors would ask why she hadn’t asked her co-workers if they needed help with their work, she usually didn’t have an answer, and it would be this lack of initiative that would lead to her dismissal. The point of this is that before we blame “they”, we need to figure out what, if any, part we might have played on our own trouble.

My children have come to learn that no matter what happens in their lives, there is almost always a cause and effect, meaning that something probably happened that caused that other thing to happen. If one child is crying and is running to me to tell me that the other child has hit him or her, I will ask the child who was hit what happened just before they were hit. Sometimes, after taking the events in reverse order, through several exchanges, the person who was hit actually began the chain of events that ended with the child being hit by the other child. While the hitting child will be disciplined for resorting to violence to resolve a conflict, the child who was hit will be educated with regards to the fact that something that they did eventually led to them being hit, and that it is not just a situation of the other child being mean to them.

What we as people have to do, before we claim that no one wants to hire us because they don’t like us, or because of our race or gender, we should look at ourselves. Before we claim that society is holding us back, we should look at ourselves. Maybe we have a Twitter account or a Facebook account that has disturbing information on it. Maybe our previous employer intimated that we didn’t work very hard. Maybe we have an arrest for theft, and now an employer that has an opening for someone to handle money doesn’t trust us to be honest. In short, there might be things about us that are keeping us from succeeding or advancing.

What I have told my children is that in some instances, the “they” that is causing the problem is actually us. The person that is holding us back could be us. We could actually be in our own way, but we are blaming “they” because we do not want to admit that we are not doing enough to help ourselves. Unfortunately,  before we blame “they”, we have to examine the situation, and look at all of the events that led to the happening that we are upset over, because we might find out that the “they” that is in our way is actually “us”.