Pride and Self-Reliance

I was taught to be independent, to be self-reliant, to stand on my own two feet.

Then I attended a seminar where I was taught that I must ask for help. From games or, to give it its proper seminar name: learning activities entitled "The Market Will Always Give You What You Want, All You Gotta Do Is Ask" to lectures to the effect of "not asking is equivalent to pride", I was confronted with a view so opposed to the self-reliant value passed down through generations of my working class ancestors and which I have adopted as one of the points in my personal moral compass.

And then I contrast this conundrum with what the Bible teaches: "Ask and ye shall receive." And "Ye have not, because ye ask not." Something I could reel off the top of my head but something I don't quite practise. Sure I pray and sure I request stuff from God but I usually ask for the mild, the possibles, the usuals. I don't really think of asking for the biggies, the impossibles, the extravagant, the all-out extraordinary, the over-the-top ones. Not because I doubted God would grant them to me, but it felt so grasping, so greedy, so not independent, not self-reliant. It felt like I'm some lazy bum, sitting around doing nothing for myself and instead asking for blessings. I thought "Wasn't there another saying that God helps those who help themselves?" Now I know I'm definitely mixing metaphors and taking texts out of context.

Since that seminar, I have been led to attend and listen to some inspired sermons on Matthew 7:7 to the effect that our Heavenly Father delights in hearing our requests and blessing us with what we asks. So now, on top of knowing this intellectually, I believe with my soul, nevertheless, in my heart of hearts, I'm still, well, Doubting Thomas. Not all the way doubting, but chary of over-asking. I still have to jolly myself, talk myself in and out and out and in and around and in between before I could ask for a biggie.

And now we come to interpersonal asking. As in people to people asking.

Do you run out and ask for help of your fellow travellers of this life everytime you need help? Or because you don't ask for help and try to get yourself out of some muddle all by yourself, you are to be accused as proud?

I had a raging argument with MOH (My Other Half, as opposed to MBH - My Better Half, the term he uses to refer to me, see yesterday's blog about that) because he accused my brothers of pride for not asking us for help. I countered that we were brought up to be self-reliant. He accused me of the same tendencies once upon a time and nowadays some of the time. I raged that it beats running around looking for handouts and begging begging without a smidgen of self-effort first before disturbing people around you.

Who's right? Who's wrong? Is it pride or is it self-reliance?