Welcome to From Insults To Respect. Today we take a look at the experience of asking for help, which can be hard for some of us. As we do so, we’ll be utilizing the tremendously popular Beatles song, “Help” in order to bring to light some aspects of the experience in an entertaining manner.
The song was released as a single in the summer of 1965 and rocketed to the number 1 spot, as Beatles songs were apt to do. John Lennon passionately sings lead vocals, while getting ample help from his bandmates Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr.
The song begins with John crying out,
(Help!) I need somebody
(Help!) Not just anybody
(Help!) You know I need someone
(Help!)
Here, I notice that although John is crying out for help, he well recognizes that he doesn’t want it from just anybody. Being selective is wise because some people who might provide assistance can make your life ever worse. Let’s keep that in mind as we move on to consider the song’s other lyrics.
The next lines of the song go like this:
When I was younger so much younger than today
I never needed anybody’s help in any way
But now these days are gone, I’m not so self assured
Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors
Here John says in the song that when he was younger he never needed any help. This may appear a bit puzzling for a couple of reasons. 
First, according to his own statements quoted in various biographies, John received quite a bit of help from his Aunt Mimi while he was growing up. 
Second, John, when he was younger, invited Paul to join his band presumably because he felt Paul could be helpful. So, he not only got a great deal of help when he was younger, he specifically asked Paul for help. The song’s lyrics up to this point do not reflect this. The puzzle is solved by discovering that John, in the song, is not referring to needing just any type of help. Instead, he is referring to needing one particular type of help, as we learn in the next verse.
Help me if you can, I’m feeling down
And I do appreciate you being ’round
Help me get my feet back on the ground
Won’t you please, please help me?
Here we see that John, in the song, is referring to seeking help for feeling down. 
In John’s culture, young folks liked viewing themselves as tough and never needing any emotional help. Asking for assistance for this type of problem could be viewed as being a sissy. Given this cultural attitude, it was rather brave of him to come out with a song such as this.
In the next verse, John shares some additional feelings about this.
And now my life has changed in oh so many ways
My independence seems to vanish in the haze
But every now and then I feel so insecure
I know that I just need you like I’ve never done before
The fear of admitting that you are emotionally feeling down and insecure is understandable given the culture John, and many of the rest of us, are brought up in. Nevertheless, John reveals in this song these feeling to the world. He also tells us he appreciates someone who is around to help him through this.
It was quite an eye opener to me as a boy growing up in Brooklyn. Being the toughest person around was viewed as the ideal. To learn that John could not only boldly reveal feelings of being insecure, and yet he continued to be adored by his fans, meant something important to me.
The song’s popularity is due in part to it relating that even someone as popular as John can feel so down he cries out for help. 
It led many of us to become aware we are not alone upon having similar feelings. It also reveals that asking for help need not mean we will end up being disrespected. However, as the opening lines of the song suggest, we might not want to ask just anyone for help. How then, do we pick the right person for this type of assistance? Although the song succeeds in raising this enormously important issue, it leaves us to seek out the answer for ourselves.
Typically, if the person you choose really cares about you and is a good empathetic listener, this will be a reliable guide to choosing well. However, taking a few moments to consider whether or not there is a downside to your choice may be worthwhile. To make this point vivid, let me tell you about some scenes from the movie Kramer vs. Kramer.
In it, Dustin Hoffman is playing a character named Ted Kramer who is going through a tough divorce. Because his boss had been a caring and good listener in the past, whenever Ted discussed work related concerns, Ted chooses to share with him how down he is as a result of going through the divorce process. 
His boss tries to sound interested, but inwardly is bored. As Ted continues over the course of several days to share his emotional difficulties with his boss, more and more boredom arises and he begins to doubt that Ted is going to be able to handle his job responsibilities as well as he had in the past. Ted ends up getting fired.
So, let this be a cautionary tale that motivates you to consider for a few moments whether or not there is a downside to whom you are leaning toward confiding with during hard times.
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Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
