Learning From a Baby How To Ask For Help

My brother, well actually his wife, had a baby last week. I spent Saturday helping my mom babysit. The situation got me thinking about a subject that comes up often for me as I work through the early stages of my solo practice. The subject is asking for help. I was looking at this one week old human being, who would be absolutely helpless without my mom and I there to assist, and it dawned on me how very quickly we lose our ability to ask others for help. The interesting thing is that as we grow, we don’t really ever lose the need for others to help us. We just no longer feel comfortable reaching out.

In my office Monday morning, faced with very real clients with very real problems, I thought about how they had put their faith and in a sense their lives in my hands. And, for a moment, I felt like that one week old baby must feel, with tons of things that just have to get done, and no real idea how or what to do.

“I’m a professional” I said to myself. And, forgetting that, I am getting paid real adult money to do the job. So one way or another, it is my responsibility to do the job right. And for that to happen, in most new situations, we need someone else to help us. Most of the time this comes in a book, or a speech, or some other impersonal method of communication where we can get the value of the information without making ourselves personally vulnerable to the person doing the teaching.

Why are people so afraid to admit to others that they simply don’t know something? In an arena as competitive as personal injury law, it takes a real moment of trust to ask another attorney, someone who would probably rather have your case than advise you on it, to help. Maybe I am just cynical and my take on human nature needs some spiritual rehabilitation. But there is some good news.

I have come to terms with the reality of my situation. There are some things that we know and some things that we don’t. There are very few things that we cannot learn. And when learned, there are very few things that we can not do well. This is the progression of pretty much any situation where we face the virgin landscape of an untested act. Perhaps this is what being human is all about.

As someone whom others have placed their faith in, I have made a commitment to embark on that journey, again and again if that’s what it takes. And staring at my nephew, five days old and helpless, in some way I think I may have it easy.

There are some things I have already learned how how to do.