Help is All Around [Us]
We are not alone, we don’t have to do it alone, and we are truly better together
I went to Costco this weekend at lunch time and had one of those “human” realizations after getting back in my car that:
We are NEVER truly alone (you may think: “well duh, you went to Costco on a Saturday at noon, OF COURSE you are NOT alone)
Someone is always there with us (not in a creepy stalking way)
ANDHelp IS all around us.
For those many (or few) 80s music - Wet Wet Wet and Four Weddings and a Funeral- fans you can start singing “Love is All Around” or the Love Actually “Christmas is all All Around” version about now.
Back to my Costco moment of “human” realization and universe connectivity. I was looking at a portable A/C unit for our master bedroom and after calling my husband to confirm he hadn’t already ordered one, I really really wanted to bring the one in front of me home, it was PERFECT. It was there, Italian made by a very good company- De Longhi- and staring at me.
One problem, it was way too heavy and large for me. I quickly ran through my options, in order of likelihood and ease of happening:
Try to lift it myself and hope the cart edge could help me distribute the weight, but then how would I get it into my car….
Walk away and order on Amazon or Costco.com
Ask husband to come back later today to get it
Come back as a family to get it with two cars because clearly the box would not fit in either of our Tesla Ys with kids in the back.
Ask someone at Costco to help me put it in the cart and THEN in the car, so in theory ask TWO people.
Just for kicks with still no clear decision made, I decided to let the Universe decide, so I went over to just test how heavy is this thing REALLY. I mean, it’s basically a large piece of plastic. (Physics wasn’t my strongest subject at school).
This is when you may notice that in my list of options ordered by likelihood and EASE, I put “Asking a stranger or 2 or 3 for HELP” LAST. That’s not a coincidence….more about this later.
As you can imagine, I don’t even think I lifted it by an ¼ inch. This is when if this were a sitcom scene, the audience -you- would be thinking, ”Come on, woman, ASK FOR HELP”.
For some reason (that I’ll need to unpack with one of my coaches), I am very good at asking for help in many situations:
When it’s something for my kids
When it would help family, colleagues, friends, or even people I just met for that matter
When it’s for work
When I can admit to myself that I need emotional support
The common denominator is “When it’s for someone else or it’s for something external to me”. I stand on a pretty large soap box when it comes to “Asking for HELP” and preaching that WE ARE NOT ALONE and WE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO DO IT ALONE. I am a very strong believer that we are better, stronger, smarter, happier, limitless when we collaborate, connect, support, partner, do things TOGETHER.
So why can’t I ask for help as easily when it is a personal thing, e.g. putting a very large and heavy A/C unit in my shopping cart? When you figure out the answer, let me (or my coaches) know.
We are back at Costco and in the story...this is when the universe provided. A very nice guy who was most likely trying to go around my cart abandoned on the other side of the aisle, stopped and asked if I needed help. And I ACCEPTED, he lifted the A/C unit, put in my cart, I thanked him, and we went on our way.
I walked around Costco in my usual looping and backtracking way. I occasionally remembered that now I had the shiny and beautiful A/C unit in my cart and no way to get into my car on my own. I contemplated abandoning the cart somewhere and going back to options 2, 3 or 4 and then decided to let the Universe decide AGAIN. Help arrived by itself once, surely it can happen again. After all, HELP IS ALL AROUND.
I was just done paying when I noticed that the same very polite guy who had helped me was at the register across from me. He must have recognized me, because next thing I know, HE is asking HIS cashier (not ME asking MY cashier) if someone can help ME put the A/C unit in my car. I overhear this, see him pointing at me and then telling me someone at the front door will be able to help. I walk up to show my receipt FULLY ready to let the words flow out of my vulnerable mouth “Do you think someone could help me get this in my car?”, when the Costco employee checking my receipt spoke those magical words before I could even blink. “Would you like help with this? YES PLEASE!
And so, he told me to leave my cart a few feet away, go get my car and someone would be ready for me. And they were, A/C unit in car, all remaining groceries unloaded and THAT is when it hit me.
We are not alone, we are never alone, we cannot do it alone, we are not supposed to be able to.
When we stop running around and living our lives by the seat of our pants (which most of us do all the time) and remember that we are all HUMANS and as such we are SOCIAL by default, not by construct.
We crave connections with others; we need connections to survive and not just the people we know. There is a deeper HUMAN CONNECTION among all of us. This is always very clear in my mind, this is why I always say: “There’s a HUMAN behind that decision / action / inaction/ word”. Not a robot, not a computer, not a desk, not a chair, not a line on a financial spreadsheet, not a resource, not software code.
A human who:
Loves, just like we do
Cries, just like we do
Laughs, just like we do
Is afraid, just like we are
Gets angry (most likely because of fear), just like we do
Needs connections and help, just like we do
Let’s remember, HELP IS ALL AROUND all the time, we just need to remember to uncover OUR human and the Human of others. This is what leads to empathy, compassion, caring, love, support, joy, fulfillment, purpose, and authenticity. This is how we create something way bigger than we could ever imagine, how we reach our potential and surpass it.
This is how we go to the moon, Mars, and sometimes just across the parking lot.