The Hunt: Taking Control and Seeking Guidance

The Tannenbaum Family Easter Egg Hunt usually goes something like this: my 12-year-old sister wakes me up at some ungodly hour, I fall back asleep, she’s forced to come wake me up ten minutes later, we all trudge/skip downstairs to the family room to begin the scavenger hunt. The “Easter Bunny” (my mother) has laid out clues for us to find our Easter eggs, scattered around the first floor; the first clue is on our Easter baskets, and subsequent clues are attached to the Easter gifts we have to find. Naturally, being the oldest of three, my wisdom should outpace that of my two younger siblings, leading me to victory long before the two of them.

Note that I used the word “should,” here, and not “did.” That was purposeful. I was stagnated after the first clue.

“THESE CLUES ARE TOO HARD,” I told my mom. “I AM TOO TIRED FOR THIS. I CAN BARELY READ THIS CLUE BECAUSE OF MY EXHAUSTION. THIS CLUE ISN’T EVEN RELEVANT ANYMORE YOU’RE PUTTING SONG LYRICS TO SONGS I AM NOT FAMILIAR WITH WHAT GIVES??”

My dad took this time to step in and offer help. “Well, these are the lyrics to ‘California Dreaming,’” he explained.

“HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW THAT??” I grumbled. “BESIDES, WE HAVE NOTHING RELATED TO CALIFORNIA IN OUR HOUSE THAT WOULD HIDE AN EASTER GIFT. THIS IS DUMB. I WANT EASIER CLUES.”

Patient as he is, my dad continued to try and help me. “‘Where all the leaves are brown.’ Did you try where mom keeps the fall decorations?”

“MOM SAID THAT WASN’T RIGHT,” I retorted. In the meantime, my sister had just finished her hunt and my brother was making headway. Surely it couldn’t be my fault that this was so difficult. My mom had clearly made my clues much harder than everyone else’s, right? And like I needed my dad’s help. I was above receiving help from my father. Wasn’t I?

When we find work challenges to be, well, challenging, our first inclination is to blame someone else. This can’t be my fault this is turning out the way it is, we tell ourselves before finding a scapegoat. My boss doesn’t understand how much pressure I am already under. This is far too much work for any one person to try and finish. This is too complicated a project. This doesn’t fall under my job description. Anything we can find to excuse ourselves from our shortcomings, we do.

Additionally, asking for help is often seen as a shortcoming in and of itself. Trying to get others’ assistance is sadly considered a weakness; it shows that you cannot do the work yourself, and are deferring control to another, more adept individual. This stigma makes it difficult to reach out when we may need it most.

So what do we need to do? If control is an issue, then looking to ourselves for the root of the issue instead of blaming others is actually an effective way of regaining that control. Once we realize we do have a hand in the problem, it becomes much easier to begin to come up with solutions that we have the agency to enact. Blaming others not only puts the root of the problem in others but also seemingly places the solutions there as well.

In regaining control of the problem, we can reach out and ask for help. Think of it as others providing you guidance for a framework that you yourself constructed rather than others giving you the answer. If your fear is in relinquishing ownership, then do as much as you can to come up with a solution on your own, celebrate in your successful problem-solving tactics, and then turn to others when the piece of the solution lies outside your expertise. You don’t know it all, but you don’t have to. Humans are social creatures for a reason.

Admitting that you might have some agency over the problem at hand is the first step. Finding a way that you can solve it is the second. And the third involves reaching out for help when there are still gaps in your solution that you cannot fill yourself.

For me, it meant chocolate and sundresses. Win-win-win.

To our readers: how do you overcome the stigma of asking for help?