Self Reflection...

...Have been doing that quite a bit in the past few days...One of the things I was shy about in my younger days (yep, I am growing older :( ...) was to ask for help....I used to be very shy to ask for even the smallest of favours...Came adulthood and MBA and some rough corporate years and I slowly learned the art of asking for help...and most often got it...But the occasional times I was refused, especially in my personal life, made me miserable...These instances used to rattle me so badly that I have often wondered whether it is worth all that heart ache...that gnawing pain which makes you feel shunned by loved ones.... And then I spent some considerable time pondering about it...and realised that the key is to analyse the situation before asking for help...and this is the analysis I do these days..."If they refuse to help, will I be able to do it myself?" and if the answer is no , then I don't ask for help...because if I can't / won't do it for whatever reason*, then it is unfair to expect others to do it for me....and if the answer is yes, then I ask for help, confident in the knowledge that though it may take more time/effort to get it done myself, atleast I have the confidence that it will surely get done - either by them or by me. And thus, whenever someone refuses to help me these days, they atleast don't get the glib satisfaction of having hurt me...'cos I get the task done anyway...and that too with a smile...which sometimes even manages to make the other person feel redundant, and this makes them help me out more often...convoluted logic, I agree...but works fine ! Afterall, the human mind is a complex mesh...And craving for attention and appreciation is an almost universal phenomenon...(The Roarks may please bow and stand aside :))

*If lack of skills is the reason, then I always make it a point to learn the skills needed to execute the task...self improvement and self reliance is the best way to live life !!!!