Let’s go to the past and talk about the story of many, a story as old as time. Mike is a guy that is passionate about programming, while everyone in high school was making friends, talking about girls or just having fun (or at least that’s what he believes the others were doing), he was there learning stuff, making cool software, games, mods for games, and just having the time of his life that way.
Mike likes creating stuff, solving problems and making ideas materialize into real time action with programming. He is also very proud of doing things by himself, he always believes that going deeper as he can and making things from “scratch” is the honorable way of doing things.
Some in school bully Mike, others tell him that he’s a genius yet Mike does not seem to understand why he struggles so much with school. He see many of the people that call him genius doing far better in school than him, he sees professors believing that he’s either an idiot or a wasted talent. Yet he can’t help himself, he never ask for help since he believes that there is honor in doing things by yourself, he would take an F with pride in school over asking for help like many of his friends do and they seem to get along with exams far better than him.
Something strange starts to happen to Mike, he starts to sense a contradiction, he feels it and actually bothers him. In one hand many people tell him that he’s very smart, that he’s a genius yet he feel stupid, he see many of those people faring better in “life”. He starts to feel annoyed when people call him “genius” or “smart guy”. Frustration arises, many confusing emotions yet he attach himself to the idea that not asking for help, that doing things the “hard way” is the honorable way of going in life.
High school ends, Mike is able to finnish it with a sensation that it was a waste of time and his califications are a mess. Years go on, he still loves to make stuff, yet he start to feel the pressure of inserting himself in society. He see many of the people in high school that called him a genius already with a new house, starting a family, etc… yet he is not able to yet land a job, he have a hard time putting a price to his work and when he does the price is so low that people can barely take him seriously.
Mike odyssey into the society became a troublesome mess. He starts to lose faith in the fact that he will always be able to insert himself in society, he isolates more and more. Mike shared cool stuff on internet, stuff that people loves, yet when people still call him smart or genius and still he doesn’t like that at all, it start to sound like as if they’re laughing at him when they say that to him.
The story goes on, this timeless story about a human being that seems to understand very complicated things yet the simple fact that humans can’t live alone seems to be the most challenging idea to face.
Mike start to know about other people that were able to land a job in IT, they are old friends or people he knew before. They didn’t do programming like him when they’re in high school, they didn’t read math during their free time like he did. Yet they do something far more powerful, something that Mike still finds dishonorable: asking for help, allowing themselves to not know something and learn without shame.
Mike still believes that he can do this alone, he did some jobs for others in the past, he is doing things without help he thinks so he still is true to his ideals he assumes. Yet more and more people that call him smart or genius are living a kind well life and he still is in the misery. He starts to feel as if people laugh at him when they call him smart, he does not believe he’s smart at all and starts to feel more and more like an idiot whom just likes programming. Heck, he even doesn’t feel a good programmer at all, after all, why he is not even being called for interviews at all?
Mike is at the bottom of the hole. He’s alone, all friends have a family and/or a house and he believes he’s the loser in this story called life. His self-steem is at the bottom and for first time in his life the need of survival is stronger than his ideals, thankfully for him, and asks for help. He hates himself because he finds himself in a condition when he cannot go on anymore without help.
And from that moment, life starts to have a new perspective for him. Time goes on, he is being helped by others to go on in life, to understand those things that for him didn’t make any sense at all in society, or stuff that he was not able to understand why to do it. He then feels like an idiot, but not for asking for help this time, but for thinking that asking for help was a bad thing and the “easy way” when by personal experience now he understand that asking for help it’s an act of courage.
Mike starts to feel better, he realizes that when people called him smart or genius that never meant anything bad against him, they were just describing what they thought about him at that time, nothing more than that. He actually start to admire simplicity over complex tasks, years ago his ideals where about making something big, of being unique, do something to be remembered in time, etc…
He now start to appreciate many things in life that in the past were not important or special to him. He start to see value and even admire special characteristics of people that seem to do simple stuff yet they manage to go alone in their life with far less tools than him, and he does not feel frustration looking at them now, but some legit admiration.
The lone cowboy that wanted to make a game engine by himself, that wanted to make something so special that he will be remembered. The cowboy that convinced him that doing something timeless is worth more than money and superficial stuff, and that having a comfortable life was for weak people now is gone for good.
Mike now discovered the superpower of making friends, caring for people, asking for help. He also helps others when he can too, and his life started to bright more.
All this little story is just the simple idea that asking for help actually it’s an act of courage and that people actually like feeling they are helping. We sometimes want to prepare ourselves for everything, to feel secure, we spend lot of time trying to go into a meeting as much prepared as we can depriving other person with the beautiful and soulfilling act of helping someone else.
Asking for help also is related to loving one self. If you don’t love yourself, then things will be hard for you and for people around you, even at work.
Let’s assume that this is all positive BS for you, that’s fine. Then let me tell you that even from a pure productive standpoint asking for help and loving yourself is more ideal than being a solitary “I can do it all myself” cowboy. Human beings like to feel they hold some purpose in life, and helping others help a lot into giving purpose to life. Also in a workplace things naturally tend to go better if the people involved get along together and there’s a connection between people. Being the smartass that never ask for help, that always try to make things work all alone and never give place to others to participate in a meaningful way tends to hurt something more valuable than the product you are working with, it hurts the human relations in that team. Also it’s kinda being a jerk to be like that.
If you try to always show that you can do everything, you only make people around you insecure, you also lose the opportunity to learn something from someone just for the fear of “looking not prepared” and the warm that was supposed to exists in a team of fellow human beings starts to become cold. It is really hard to start an engine with cold, and it’s even harder to fuel a product/company with coldness.
To love others you must learn to love yourself. To help others you must learn to allow yourself to be helped. Don’t fear to seem ignorant, since we ignore more than we know. Don’t fear to feel unprepared, since most of us are not prepared for what can happen tomorrow if things don’t go as we plan. Don’t fear to look stupid, since probably your team prefer a silly question rather than lack of communication.
There is nothing to prove, just human beings working together, living together, crying together and laughing together.
Just fucking chill.
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