Accepting Help

About every three months, I get to teach a class to High School and Middle School students about what I do for a living. I take advantage of the opportunity to talk about much larger issues, such as Ordered Liberty, Freedom, and the Rule of Law, hearkening back to a practice I had in the military when I would teach classes at the on-post school on Constitution Day. I particularly enjoy an exercise with the students in which they write down what it means to them to be free from unwanted impositions versus what it means to be free to accomplish meaningful outcomes. 

The bottom line is something I learned from a professor of political philosophy, David Bohn. Professor Bohn had us read one of the most beautiful books, Bonds That Make Us Free, by C. Terry Warner. This book posits that ultimate freedom is the freedom to become our best selves. And, to become our best selves, we cannot escape the fact we need others. True freedom entails some degree of reliance on one another. Consequently, ultimate freedom is not independence, but rather interdependence. 

Warner illustrates. For some, flying solo as a pilot is the height of individual accomplishment and freedom. Counterintuitively, flying demonstrates the freedom which results from the interdependence of relying on others. For a pilot to fly, someone must use their skill and expertise to make the airplane, harnessing decades of advancement and transferred knowledge. Someone else must make and maintain the air strip. Another must drill the oil, another refines it into fuel, and another must deliver it safely. And there needs to be someone to teach the pilot, and another to staff the control tower to keep the pilots safe, etc. When examined, the number of OTHERS relied upon to create the conditions in which an INDIVIDUAL may fly is astounding.   

This agrees with the founding concept of civic virtue, the pursuit of self-governance and the common good. Knowing when to ask for and accept help requires balancing healthy self-reliance with the interdependence of the common good. If we reach within ourselves and toward others, the path will become clear. When an individually-pursued outcome aligns sufficiently with the common good, it is healthy and proper to ask for and receive help. Put another way, because we are interdependent, in some situations it would negatively affect others if we did NOT obtain the help we need.  

We have been compelled to accept help many times. So many have given us so much, and it has made all the difference. We are held aloft by others. We are filled with gratitude. Thank you.