When They Need Help

Let's be honest for a second, the world stinks at helping. It doesn't matter where you are or what you are doing when you need someone to come alongside you and help you out, you get crickets. People don't line up to help, especially when it's not something interesting.  I'm not explaining this well, so let's back up. If you suffer from depression, from anxiety, from a physical disability or have pain, it's hard to get people to really understand where you are and how you feel. We live in such a performance-driven world, driven by the bottom line that often we get too busy, we don't have time or energy to help out those who need a leg up. It's a sad state of affairs, and I'm writing today so maybe we can all get a better perspective.

Has someone ever disappointed you by not getting things done? Something fell through, they missed the boat, dropped the ball? Did you ask if they needed help? Did you ask if everything is alright? I know, if they needed help, they should have asked for it, but how easy is it in this culture and this environment to ask for help? How often do you ask for help when you need it? It can be hard and we are expected to perform at our highest levels all the time.

Now I'm not advocating that we let people get lazy and slide by, I'm not saying we don't expect greatness from people. What I am saying is, maybe it's time we put the person before the task. Maybe it's time we take care of each other. We ask if we can help, we come along side of people, we stop getting angry and offended and upset and we start getting personal. We become helpful. We live in a society, in a world where everyone is damaged, everyone has been hurt. You have been hurt and you have felt like you weren't important at some point. Take that memory and use it to help others, not abuse your own authority.

The only thing in this world that will last for eternity are the souls of each person. If we cast aside the eternal for the things that fade away, we are acting foolishly.