Walk Your Own Path

Our culture teaches us that we should be strong and resilient.  Weakness is frowned upon, and asking for help is seen as a weakness.  Am I telling you anything new??  I’m all for asking for help – but only as a concept apparently, because I’m terrible at asking others for help.  It’s just not how I was raised, I guess. 

I know I’m not alone in this.  By asking for help, we can feel that we’re burdening others, or that we might lose face by showing our ‘weakness.’   By asking for help, we might feel obligated to following through with the advice given.  Maybe we were made fun of in the past for showing our ignorance about how to move forward, so we’re reluctant to expose ourselves again.  Often, it just feels like we should know what to do, that we should be in the driver’s seat, and if we wait just a little longer maybe we’ll figure it out and won’t have to ask for help. 

And you know what?  I wholeheartedly believe that you are the best authority of what you need to do.  You are in the driver’s seat, right now, at this very moment, whether or not it feels like you are.  You might be dealing with fear because you’ve been down a similar path before and you’re worried the same result could happen again.  Or maybe you’re feeling unsure about the future because you stuck your neck out before and it didn’t work out.  All of these feelings can keep you from clearly seeing the next steps you need to take.  But they don’t reduce your authority in understanding what’s best for you. 

Getting help and advice from others is valuable.  But we also have to understand ourselves well enough, and have skills in place to know where we want to go in the first place.  We have to walk our own path.

If you’re the kind of person who finds it hard to ask others for help, then learn how to be your own best advocate and counselor.  Once you have these skills in place, your need to ask others opinions on what path you should take will become a distant memory. 

Your wisdom is deep.  Go find it.