Self-reliance is usually regarded as a virtue. We admire people who cope without complaining, who take responsibility and just quietly get things done.
What interests me, though, is why some people do and others don’t develop this trait.
I count myself amongst the people who habitually handle things on their own without ever considering whether they actually have to. It simply feels easier. Explaining takes time. Delegating creates uncertainty. Depending on someone else means accepting that things may not happen as you would have done them.
We become the person who carries the extra responsibility, keeps concerns to themselves, solves problems before anyone notices them, and says, “I’ll do it,” almost automatically.
From the outside, this looks like capability, and in many ways, it is. It builds a reputation for being dependable. It’s what makes others too rely on you.
On the other hand, I’ve also experienced how irritating it can be to offer help to such a person only to be rejected. It leaves the other person feeling unnecessary, even though the intention probably never was to push them away.
Studying the phenomenon has made me think that self-reliance is sometimes less a personality trait than a strategy to protect something.
For the self-reliant person carrying a heavy burden often feels more manageable than navigating the unpredictability that comes with relying on other people. Handing over control feels unacceptable. Perhaps even unsafe.
So, instead of asking why someone finds it difficult to ask for help, I’ve started focusing on the question of what asking for help has come to mean to them.
The behaviours we struggle with often started out as solutions. They protected us, helped us adapt, or allowed us to function in a particular environment. We tend to notice them only when they begin to create friction, by which time we call them flaws rather than recognising them as strategies that may have outlived their usefulness.
By now, I’m thinking that understanding what a behaviour has been trying to achieve is often the first step towards changing the behaviour itself.