Help

Help, I need somebody,
Help, not just anybody,
Help, you know I need someone, help.

Don't you love a good Beatles' song? I have a compilation album that Apple Records put out. It has all my favorites. Here Comes the Sun. Let It Be. Paperback Writer. And a few that I just skip over on the iPod, and I'll skip over here, too. But the one that always come back to haunt me is Help!. Love Help!. Probably because it mirrors my own life.

When I was younger, so much younger than today,
I never needed anybody's help in any way.
But now these days are gone, I'm not so self assured,
Now I find I've changed my mind and opened up the doors.

I don't recall what I was like as a small child. I do recall wanting to do things for myself. But that's neither here nor there. Somewhere along the line, I learned to do for myself. That with enough information I could figure out how to get something done without "bothering" anyone. Self-sufficiency (as well as quiet) was prized in my home. I lived in a multi-generational house whose motto seemed to be: Don't bother me, kid. So, I became self sufficient and pretty good at doing for myself. I also became wary and silent, but that's a blog for another day. By my teen years, I knew that I could do anything that I put my mind to. Adults seemed to be completely clueless. And whenever they offered me help, I almost bit their head off. I mean, what were they insinuating? That I couldn't do it myself? That I wasn't smart enough to figure it? Trust me, bub, I've got it all figured out! (I was a very angry teen.) Plus, whenever I had to ask for help, I felt embarrassed. Like I really wasn't smart enough to figure it out. And I felt like I had to guard that secret with everything I had because people might try to exploit me. (Really, I don't know where some of these convictions came from.)

I got through my teen years feeling pretty competent and confident which was a blessing and a curse all rolled into one. I had reinforced certain cynical and self protective ideas that probably shouldn't have been reinforced. However, I had also given myself the mental material I needed to make flying leaps of blind faith because I knew I could handle whatever might happen. So, six of one, half dozen of the other, you know? Help, however, wasn't in the equation. This seemed to be one of the charitable ideas I left behind after I learned how to tie my sneakers. I didn't "need" anyone. I could do it on my own. I would do it on my own. Which is silly really; nobody knows everything. And no one can do everything by him or her self. And as time went by, I suffered for the algebraic formula of Help = Weakness. What I've learned, the very hardest way, is that by shutting everyone out, not allowing them in when you need them the very most, is lonely! And makes life harder! At absolute worst, it can be down right isolating.

Help me if you can, I'm feeling down
And I do appreciate you being round.
Help me, get my feet back on the ground,
Won't you please, please help me?

Accepting help isn't weakness but an acknowledgement that the whole is stronger than a single component. My biggest obstacle now, at the ripe ol' age of thirty-umm... is learning how to ask for help without feeling foolish and incompetent. Without putting a label on it or thinking that it means something that it doesn't. Recently, I've had what can only be called A Divine Test. These "tests", which I believe come to test us to see if we've learned anything about the human experience, come up on occasion, and I usually fail them. This time, however, I might have passed. (With a C, but I'll take it.) You see, my 1998 Jetta finally got to a place where it needed to be retired. And I did what I normally do in a financial crisis. I panicked. Bad. I ran out to Carmax and bought a very cute, very "ME" 2006 red VW Beetle. But. The car had issues. Electrical and mechanical. And after three weeks of waiting for Rome to canonize someone as the patron saint of used cars in order to miraculously heal my Beetle's transmission, I finally gave up and convinced Carmax to take the car back. In the meantime, of course, I received a TON of advice which I promptly started to file in "No" and "Yes" piles for reasons I've stated before. (See, advice) But I knew there was one particular person who could really help. So, I broke down and emailed him.

And now my life has changed in oh so many ways,
My independence seems to vanish in the haze.
But every now and then I feel so insecure,
I know that I just need you like I've never done before.

And guess what? He helped. A lot. He also lectured me. He said that if I contacted him in the beginning, "we" could have avoided the whole Beetle disaster. (Like I said, C.) But I'll say this: At the end of the day, I felt relief at handing over this problem to someone more capable than I. It didn't mean that I was incapable. I just needed a little help.

The Journeyman

I was just reading a friend's blog in which she mentioned Joseph Campbell's Hero's Journey. I'm a big Joe Campbell fan mostly because I love story and I think its brilliant that he went out there and figured out why story resonates with people. Thanks, Joe! In her post, my friend commented that she likes to think about the Hero's Journey and how it applies to real life. How each of us should be looking for our blissful path. Which reminded me of my favorite poem, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost. I read it probably back in sixth grade, and it resounded with me even back then. And it continues to resound with me today. Sometimes, in fact, I think that this poem gave me the courage to make some of my more inspired decisions which great art should. In case you're not familiar with it:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

I've used this road analogy a lot throughout my life, maybe because of this poem. But it's always felt appropriate in trying to explain the way I feel. For instance, I often wonder if I'm on the right "path" in life. I wonder where my Free Will and my Destiny "intersect." Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck "in a jam" and I crave movement. And other times I feel like I'm being angrily swept up "in the flow." I've said in the past that I feel like everyone else is on the superhighway while I'm taking the surface road right next to it, looking for the on ramp.

I don't know if there is a path we're supposed to take. This is where Campbell comes in. He says, No. I don't know if there are experiences we're supposed to have. My religion says, Yes. And according to that religion, all will be revealed at the end of the journey. But until then I'm just supposed to keep moving. Looking for the things that make me blissful. Of course, this is not a particularly easy task nor one I'm particularly fond of. It seems awfully risky to keep moving without GPS or at the very least a Thomas Guide. When I look forward, down the road, if you will, I become a worried mess, terrified of putting a foot wrong. I don't trust very easily, not even myself it seems. I want to believe that I can reserve "the first" road. That I can go back to it. If I need it. But If I've learned one thing in my 30+ years it is is this: No matter where I put that foot, I'm going to be just fine. I just have to trust in the movement.

Some people have assumed that Frost's last line implies that he's happy he didn't take the first road. He's tickled he's taken the second. But I've always felt that he's neither proud nor blissed out. The word sigh gives it away. I think he's content. Satisfied. The journey was good. And it's the journey that matters.