When I was younger, so much younger than today
I never needed anybody’s help in any way
But now those days are gone
I’m not so self-assured
Now I find I’ve changed my mind
I’ve opened up the doors
Now Playing
Song: “Help!”
Artist: The Beatles
Watch, then come back.
Help! has always been one of my favorite Beatles songs. Mainly because my brother and I loved singing it together in harmony. I’ve been singing those words for a very long time. But even when I was much younger, something about them didn’t quite fit me. I remember thinking that I wasn’t especially self-assured even then.
I didn’t go through life believing I could handle everything because I was particularly confident in myself. I just didn’t feel like asking for help was really an option. Circumstances weren’t always the best, and somewhere along the way, I learned to live that way without questioning it very much. You figure things out. You handle what needs handling. You try not to need too much from others. Eventually, what began as adaptation can start looking an awful lot like independence.
The older I’ve gotten, though, the more I’ve realized that my lack of self-assurance may actually have been part of what kept that door closed. Because expectations get tangled into it, too. The expectations other people have of us. The expectations we think other people have of us. And maybe most powerful of all, the expectations we quietly build for ourselves.
Be capable.
Be responsible.
Don’t make things harder for anyone else.
Don’t ask for too much.
You should be able to handle this.
After a while, those expectations don’t even sound like expectations anymore. They just sound like… truth. Maybe that’s why these lyrics mean something different to me now.
Now I find I’ve changed my mind.
I’ve opened up the doors.
There’s something important in that. He doesn’t say he failed. He doesn’t say independence stopped mattering. He says he changed his mind. Maybe opening the door isn’t admitting that we aren’t capable. Maybe sometimes it’s realizing that capability was never supposed to mean doing everything alone.
We talk about self-care as something we do for ourselves. Take the walk. Get some rest. Set the boundary. Make the appointment. Turn off the phone. Drink the water. And yes, all of those things can absolutely be self-care. But I think the word self can sometimes fool us.
Self-care means care of the self.
It does not necessarily mean care provided exclusively by the self.
Sometimes caring for ourselves means letting somebody help carry something. Accepting the meal. Believing the compliment. Saying yes when somebody offers. Admitting we don’t know. Letting another person contribute without immediately calculating how we’ll repay them.
Sometimes it means resisting that automatic response:
No, I’m good. I’ve got it.
Maybe that’s a kind of growth, too. Not becoming so independent that we never need anyone. But becoming secure enough to recognize what we need when we need it. Secure enough to let someone else participate. Secure enough to leave the door open when care arrives.
Maybe self-care isn’t always asking:
What can I do for myself?
Maybe sometimes the better question is:
What am I willing to receive?
Because receiving is participation, too. And sometimes opening the door is part of taking care of the person on the other side.
You.
