In January 1965, after living their entire lives in soggy Western Washington, my mom and dad packed up their belongings and moved to sunny Arizona. After enjoying the dry climate for several months, Mom wrote a letter to her father inviting him to close up the “mom and pop” store that he operated thirteen hours a day, seven days a week and come live with them in Tempe.
“We have a room set aside for you,” Mom explained. “And there’s a beautiful park nearby filled with men playing checkers and chess. I’m sure you’d love it here. Please come live with us.”
“It sounds wonderful,” Grandpa replied in a return letter. “It’s tempting to move to a place where it doesn’t rain most of the time, but I’m afraid I’ll have to decline. You know how hard it is for a man of my age to find work.”
Grandpa was eighty-five years old when he penned that response and he meant every word of it. He couldn’t conceive of not having a job and he certainly couldn’t imagine relying on others. He’d always been self-reliant. Orphaned at a young age, Grandpa was taken in by a relative who didn’t like him very much and, to remove any doubt on the matter, beat him regularly.
One day when Grandpa was ten, his schoolteacher began brutally spanking a small child in his class—there was a lot of that going on. This continued until Grandpa could take it no longer—he pummeled the teacher until the fellow fled the classroom. Needless to say, Grandpa was expelled for his efforts. While his caretakers brooded over what to do next, he packed his belongings into an old flour sack and set out from Dyersville, Iowa to live with his nine-year-old second cousin, May, and her parents—the relatives who had been kind to him when he had met them at a family gathering a few years earlier.
For several days, Grandpa trudged westward. For sustenance he drank from creeks, ate fruit from trees, and stole eggs from chicken coops.
“When we laid eyes on Billy [my grandpa],” May explained to me when I first met her many years later, “my mom and I were sitting on the porch drinking lemonade. At first, I thought it was a stray dog coming down the dirt road that passed in front of our house. I could barely make out a speck in the distance, but then I could see it was a person: it was a boy! The poor thing looked like he was going to collapse from the heat. As he drew close enough to see his face, we realized it was Billy. Mother and I ran to greet him, took him in our arms, and smothered him with kisses.”
After days of lonely effort—ten-year-old Billy had walked across the state of Iowa. Reaching cousin May’s house in Sioux City, he realized he was finally home. For the next eight years, Billy was loved and cared for by his cousins. When he graduated from high school, he left to make a life for himself.
For almost two decades, my grandfather worked at everything from trapping in Minnesota to playing cards on a Mississippi river boat—until he finally met my grandmother. He fell in love, settled down, and raised my mother and her sister.
Grandpa taught my mom to be as independent as he had learned to be throughout his twenty years of bachelorhood. He had learned to cook and sew, and do all things domestic—not as a point of pride, but from sheer necessity. So, along with housekeeping skills, he taught Mom how to swing a hammer and repair the plumbing.
By the time I was twelve, both my mom and granddad had passed the tradition to me. I’d come home from school to find Mom tearing out part of a wall with a crowbar in an effort to get a remodeling project on its feet. I’d then either help her with the project or make dinner before Dad came home to help complete the job.
This independence has served me well. I love the freedom that comes from being able to do things on my own. However, sometimes my desire for self-sufficiency morphs from autonomy to pride and pig-headedness—and that’s when it gets me into trouble. Strengths, taken to the extreme, become weaknesses.
For instance, for our 40th anniversary, my wife and I traveled to Paris where we signed up for a nighttime Segway tour of the city. From the very start, I could see that my wife’s night vision wasn’t up to the challenge of speeding along the Champs-Élysées on what was little more than an electric stick. Every few minutes, she’d zoom perilously close to a pillar or wall and I’d shout out a warning. But I didn’t dare ask to stop and return to home base because it would have ended the tour for everyone. So we continued on despite my nagging fear that something bad was about to happen.
And then it happened. Louise careened off a pillar, flew through the air, crashed to the cobblestone, and cracked her pelvis. For the next three days, I fretted and fumed over how to get her home safely. She could travel without it causing harm, but it hurt so much . . . well, I just didn’t know what to do.
After two days of fruitless worrying, and out of utter desperation, I finally approached our hotel manager and said something I almost never say.
“I need your help,” I nervously whispered. Then I explained our predicament.
“Yes,” the manager responded, “I can see your problem. I’m not sure how to solve it, but don’t worry Mr. Patterson, we will figure it out.”
And he did.
In my case, the independence I learned from my grandfather occasionally transmutes into “indepen-dunce” and keeps me from asking others for their assistance, even when I need it. Had I stopped our tour group and explained—”My wife and I need to return, but I also don’t want to disrupt the tour. Do you have any ideas on how to achieve that?”—I’m sure the guide and other tourists would have come up with five different solutions.
I know I’m not alone in my misunderstanding of self-reliance. At work, employees routinely avoid asking for help because they fear it might make them look weak. Perhaps you’ve seen a newly promoted boss refuse to say “I don’t know” because she’s a supervisor and believes that means she’s supposed to know everything.
For over sixty years, I’ve honed my abilities to stand on my own—as if that’s life’s one true measure of success. Since I learned independence at my grandfather’s knee, it’s not something I’m going to simply let go of—nor could I. Fortunately, that’s not required. I simply need to couple independence with an equal desire to both seek and give assistance. Stopping and asking others for help is not a sign of weakness or a character flaw. It’s a sign that we need each other. And that’s a good thing.
So, here’s to taking the dunce out of independence.
Thanks for this Kerry. Incredibly inspiring, and illuminating.
One of our pillars of Adult Training in Boy Scouts was “Knowing and Using your resources”. It has helped in all facets of my life.
Something vitally important here! I’ll explain by a story – I am one of a lot of kids, one of whom is what is what is colloquially termed “a user”. The rest of us have careers, homes, and the busy lives and sense of independence that come from a hard background. The other sibling is often unemployed (by choice), and is always the one who asks my parents for a lift to work, my dad to shampoo her carpets, a loan to cover her rent etc. For years, the rest of us gave her the side-eye, and couldn’nt understand why my parents continued. Then I suddenly realised the gift she was giving them – the gift of giving and sharing, the gift of being useful and helpful. I may have given them my love and time, but in the hierarchy of needs, feeling useful is important. Don’t be afraid to ask for help when you are struggling a little – the self-respect you can give to another, and the joy of joint enterprise can be way more valuable than the self-respect you feel for having succeeded alone. Much, much easier said than done though!
No one can know/do everything them self. To think so is dangerous.
Being independent is good. As a friend of mine once told me, if you want something done, do it yourself. However, I’ve learned if you want to be a good leader, you have to have a great team in place to get things done. You have to know the right person to ask, and by knowing who to ask, you not only get things done, but they are done efficiently. My final words – You never know if you don’t ask.
This is a brilliant life lesson transferable to all in learning when to ask for help. The truth of the matter is, when you ask for help, you are providing others with the opportunity to grow and connect.
Oh my, how timely for me! I was just sick for the first time since my husband’s death and thought “how alone (and scared) I am.” Once I communicated my condition to a few people, co-workers reached out to me and people from church reached out to me, all offering to do anything to help. My nature is to suffer independently and take care of myself. How blessed I was to let others into my life and to let them care for my in any little way they could. My “independunce” has turned into an “indepenDANCE” because I’m no more alone . . . than I choose to be. Thanks.
I really laughed and appreciated turning “dunce” to “dance”. I’ll have to try it.
Thanks from one dunce to another. I needed that!
Mr. Kerry:
I agree whole heartedly with your opinion of independence. I remember though in the service, I won’t say which because it’s not the point, I let someone else do work I was supposed to do. I got a lesson in learning to carry my load that I never forgot. I’ve found though, that as long as I carry my load or at least try to, others are willing to help out if asked.
Dear Mr. Patterson,
I look forward to my vitalsmarts e-mail when it comes in, and am especially excited when one of your articles appears ! They are always well written and extremely great ! I really enjoy each one, but especially the one on Independunce. You are an exceptionally talented writer ! Keep up the great work !
Wyell
As an “Independunce” person I truly appreciate this story. What I particularly is how you’ve so genuinely and heartfully shared your personal story. Thank you!
This is great – thank you. Learning to ask for help is such a useful skill. One I’m trying to work on
To me the heart of this story, is in your phrase, “Strengths, taken to the extreme, become weaknesses.” That applies to any strength (natural talent or ability learned) we have. Find our who your team is in every situation, and work with your team. Even in the first part, when your mother was tearing out the wall, you were the team member that took care of a much needed part of the operation, providing sustenance.
This is such a timely article for myself and my family. I was also raised in a family that, when anything came up that needed help, we circled the wagons and took care of it on our own. Now that my parents are aging and in need of some additional support, huge riffs have formed in our family. Two feel that the 7 children should be able to do it all. The other 5, knowing that we all work, have families, have our own daily struggles… believe we need help. Independence is wonderful when it is not taking you beyond the limits of your capabilities or impacts your health and family relationships. Don’t forget that God put others on this earth to be a support to you during certain times. We are blessed for helping others, so allow others to receive blessings for helping us!
I needed to hear this story today. I’ve been trying to prepare for a project and feel overwhelmed. I know there are people who can help and yet I’m bumbling forward without asking. Thank you for reminding me that it is also a strength to know when you need assistance.
Thank you so much for pulling Kerry’s stories out of the archives from time to time. I absolutely love his stories – he was an amazing human being!