If you have ever offered to give me some sort of assistance in the past and I have rejected you, I feel I owe you an explanation. It’s not because I don’t like you, or that I don’t trust you, but because I am so stubborn I would rather gravely injure myself than accept help.
I have tripped, fallen and lost personal items just on account of my stubbornness. Just a week ago, I cut my hand carrying a case of waters. This came about because I was convinced I could carry all 24 bottles from my car to my room without stopping. I was also convinced it wasn’t heavy enough to slice my hand, but alas. Not only did I refuse to stop, but a very nice boy asked to help me because it looked heavy. I told him it was relatively light and that it would be more trouble for me to hand it over to him, so I might as well just keep carrying it. All lies. I’m neither the deceiving nor masochistic type, so what would lead me to lie twice in one sentence as heavy plastic pierced my skin?
In another example of my bullheadedness, I’ll take you back to my first year. One morning I had to run to catch a bus that was approaching the stop. I had to get on this one or else the walk would make me late to class. Just as I arrived out of breath, I slowed down, naïvely thinking I had made it. In that moment, the driver closed the doors, and began pulling away. I had just been made a fool of. But after a few seconds he realized I was standing there and stopped the bus, re-opening the doors just for me, and do you know what I did? I stood there with the doors open in front of me, looking around with my arms crossed as if this was not the bus I was waiting for. But it was. He knew it, and I knew it. Once it pulled away I started fast-walking in that same direction to the class I was probably going to be late for.
In reality, that bus driver didn’t see me and went out of his way to stop again in order to let me on. But that’s not how I saw it, not at all. I had been publicly shamed by this malicious man who wanted to embarrass me in front of my peers. If I had gotten on that bus, I would have left my pride at that stop and he would have had the power. That bus represented at least 20 people who saw me idiotically running, then being rejected. If I accepted this olive branch, then I would lose and everyone would know it. By not accepting entry on the bus, I had power over the situation. That reasoning probably isn’t sound to you, but if you dig deep enough into your psyche like I have, it makes total sense.
Now that we have at least scratched the surface of my belief system, let’s test it with a viewpoint that will take a lot more rationalizing: The fact that I find other people’s stubbornness unacceptable.
Last week while the sidewalks were still icy, I watched a poor, hapless boy walking in front of me slip multiple times before falling to the ground. I extended my hand to him but he decided to help himself up. I could not believe that he had the audacity to refuse my help. It had to have been harder to pull himself than to just simply grab my hand. Who does he think he is? But then it made sense. He was embarrassed by the cartoonish way he fell and he felt that the only way to redeem himself would be to get back up on his feet without any assistance, all on his own. That sounds like something I would do, and yet I still find it outrageous that he didn’t accept my help. In essence, I am so stubborn that I refuse to allow the possibility for other people to be stubborn.
Oh, it doesn’t make sense that I won’t accept help but I expect others to? Maybe not to you it doesn’t, but I’ll surely find a way to rationalize it. So now you know, if I don’t accept your help don’t take it personally, but you damn well better accept mine.
Alexis Ferebee is a Humor writer.
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