Why Don’t We Help Ourselves?

A couple of weeks ago, my middle daughter (who is nearly three years old) was curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor complaining that she was cold. I felt her to make sure she didn’t have a fever. She didn’t, so I’m pretty sure she felt cold because the air conditioning had just kicked on and she was directly beneath a vent. She was also on the floor, which feels cool because it is made of tile. I suggested she get off the floor, move out from underneath the vent, and go into the living room where she could cover herself with a blanket. She refused and continued to lie there complaining about being cold.

As has happened so many times while watching my kids, I felt like the Lord was pointing out one of my own behaviors. There was an easy solution to my daughter’s problem, but she wouldn’t help herself. Sometimes there are easy solutions to my problems, but I won’t help myself.

• I’ll feel frustrated about something my husband is doing (or not doing), but I’ll stew about it instead of saying something to him.
• I’ll feel overwhelmed for months because I’m struggling to get things done, but I won’t take the time to sit down and reconfigure our routine.
• We’ll be struggling to make it to church on time on Sundays, but I won’t set my alarm for 30 minutes earlier in order to get us ready to leave at an earlier time.

Do you see what I mean? I’ll maintain the ineffective, unpleasant, and/or frustrating status quo instead of doing something to change the situation. Do you do this? Maybe you’re getting into a lot of debt, but you won’t sit down and create a budget to help get your spending under control. Perhaps you’re trying to eat less junk food, but you continue to head down the snack aisle every time you grocery shop. Maybe you’re trying to spend less time on social media, but you won’t delete the social media apps from your phone. Whatever the specifics, many of us tend to be a bit apathetic when it comes to helping ourselves. Why is this? Here are five things I think hold us back.

Reasons we don’t do things we know are good for us

• We desire immediate gratification. It is very difficult for us to forgo something now in the hope that this will benefit us in the future. This is partly because we don’t like to wait and partly because the present is tangible while the future is intangible. This aversion to delaying gratification is one reason we don’t help ourselves. For example, we know we should eat right and exercise for our health. However, the immediate satisfaction of eating a donut is often more compelling than the desire to maintain our long-term health. Likewise, the immediate satisfaction of spending today’s paycheck on a dream vacation is often more compelling than investing in a retirement account to provide for our needs in the future.
• We don’t want to step out of our comfort zones. We often prefer the known—however unpleasant, frustrating, or ineffective it may be—to the unknown. We’re comfortable with it, even if it is not good. Subsequently, we don’t make changes. For example, we’ll keep hanging out with toxic friends because without them we would have to put ourselves out there in order to meet new friends.
• We fear failure. We don’t want to boldly step out of our comfort zones and make a change just to fail. The fear of failure can be crippling. This is because it touches on our feelings of self-worth and competency, and it can impact the well-being our families. For example, we may remain in bad jobs instead of pursuing better careers because we fear we won’t be able to get better jobs. Being without work would be devastating personally and to our families.
• We’re too busy blaming other people or things for our problems. Sometimes we see things in our lives that need to change, but we don’t realize that we are capable of changing them. We’ll be so busy blaming other people or things for the problems that we overlook our roles in the situations. For example, we’ll struggle with being late all of the time and blame the traffic in our communities while ignoring the fact that we hit snooze on our alarms five times instead of getting out of bed on time. Likewise, we’ll be drowning in debt and blame the cost of groceries while ignoring the fact that we eat out numerous times each week and buy new clothes each month.
• We don’t want to ask for help. There are some changes we’re unable to make by ourselves. We know we’re going to have to get help. When this happens, pride often rears its ugly head. We’ll maintain the status quo because we don’t want to admit to others that we need their help. For example, we’ll keep struggling with an addiction (such as to the tobacco in cigarettes) because we’re embarrassed to ask for help from a professional or we’ll keep struggling financially because we’re embarrassed to attend a class on personal finance.

I’ve found that these obstacles are relevant regardless of what change I need to attempt (managing time, getting rid of clutter, taking care of my body, managing finances, etc.). Thankfully, being aware of them helps me overcome the obstacles and begin making changes.

Do you find it easy to help yourself or do you struggle with it? What other obstacles would you add to this list?

Shared at the following:

Encouraging Hearts and Home.