Tag Archives: Servitude September

Challenge, Learning, Life

Servitude September Week One….

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For those of you reading this for the first time and are not sure entirely what it is that I am doing, read my previous post “Learning To Ask For Help in Servitude September”. For all others, kick back, enjoy the ride.

The warm up…

It is the 25th August and we have started early. Despite working with make up before and having a keen eye for it, today I asked the woman at Sephora to help me choose eyeshadows that will match my new red hair and green eyes. She helped me out. We had a discussion about different life related things, it was interesting and I left with what I needed feeling somewhat amused that I asked for help with something I didn’t need help with.

Enter the real challenge….

September 1

I am not having an awesome run of things today. After last night’s train getting cancelled and being stuck overnight again in Cardiff I decided to make the most of my day there.

I dropped my phone off to get it fixed while heading off to the museum. When I got back the phone wasn’t ready and I was running late for my train rendering me in a mental state. So I got the phone, got on the train and then realized that I had just paid 40 pounds to have an air bubble installed over my camera.

I eventually made it back to London. Despite having to ask people for help with many things… ie my train card was for yesterday, what do I do? Where can I find this? Blah blah blah I had lost my patience with trying to ask anyone to help me with anything. Partly because I don’t want help. And partly because I am annoyed with people screwing things up… namely my phone….

September 2 

It was my first day in the agency for work. I allowed someone to get me a cup of water instead of getting it for myself. Hurrah. Helped. And then shit took another turn for the worse when my oyster card for the train decided to stop working.

After just seeing a dive of a room to let I tried to buy my weekly pass for the tube. Oyster card not working. The man in the tube station is no help to me. All I want is for my card to work so I can go to my other house to look at and this dick head just keeps rambling on at me about why they are striking. Got fed up with him, left and called London Transit on the phone so the woman could tell me all of the amazing hoopla I needed to jump through to get money off the card. I eventually ended up out of pocket having to fix this damn thing but when I arrived at Stockholm station the man there seemed not only lovely but astute enough to help me in giving me a new card within the space of 2 minutes and I was on my way. Not that hard really???

September 3

First day of school and I am pretty sure I drove people mental all day asking questions and for help getting all of the things I needed and my brain organized enough to deal with school. I am feeling a bucket load overwhelmed, and yet somehow still kinda ok.

September 4

I again asked for a lot of help today in understanding timetables, curriculum, beginning to plan lessons etc. I think the thing is by day 4, is that I have so much stuff I have to rely on others for right now that I find it too overwhelming to take time out to then also ask for help with things I could do myself. I would feel like a full blown menace to society. Instead, I have resorted to going home and having a nap because it’s all a little too exhausting….

The four day summary

So I guess what we can say about this entire week is this…. I am in one of the most stressful transitions that a person can go through.  I am too exhausted to ask people for help because I don’t trust people will do things effectively or correctly. Then it winds up costing me more time and effort fixing the problem that could have been avoided with me just doing it myself in the first place. Having bad luck with a whole bunch of things did not help this situation further. I am currently thinking that Servitude October might have been a smarter month as then I may be more settled and less stressed enough to actually deal with the challenge properly. That and I wouldn’t probably be failing quite so dismally at it as I am right now…. here is a novel idea…. maybe I should ask for help with asking for help! 🙂

 

Challenge, Learning, Life

Learning To Ask For Help in Servitude September

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My entire life I have had strong female role models. Well just strong role models in general. So much so that when my cars clutch goes to the floor at midnight on the way home, I drive it to the mechanic shop like a rally car driver with no clutch, park it out front and then start the hour and a half walk home because it doesn’t occur to me to call my house mate and ask for help getting home because it is my problem, not theirs. So much so that I will still be attempting to haul my own bags down the street 400m and up the stairs for an hour after just being released from the hospital after 5 days with pneumonia. So much so that I would crawl my way home after getting hit by a car and walk an hour and a half to get to the hospital for an x ray to make sure my arm isn’t broken.  The thing is, I never, ever ask for help. Like EVER. In some ways I have been taught that it is like admitting defeat that you simply cannot do things yourself. It is an act that has made me an incredibly strong and independent person, but in many ways it has also made me quite inaccessible to others as my walls are too impermeable.

So my good friend laid me out a challenge for the month of September that she calls “Servitude September”. She feels that “acts of service is one of the ways that people show love.  The theory is that you do things for people all the time, and it makes you feel good.  By allowing people to help you, it will create a space for people to start showing you love” and thus will help me become more open to others.

The challenge set is as such:

You must ask someone for at least one favour a day building up to five a day by the end of September. I must record what I asked for and how I felt about asking for it. I must ask a mix of genders for different things in equal amounts, so half men and half women for such favour. These things that I ask for must be things that I can do by myself without help from anyone else. This is the most important of the rules. It has to be something I can do for myself. If not it defeats the purpose of the whole idea.

To be honest, I am terrified. The idea of asking people for help makes me more vulnerable, regardless the size of the favour. I fear that people will see me as being less capable.  I feel like I will owe people and be in their debt. That it in many ways will strip down the strong and independent woman that I am. I am also terrified of the doors it may open up with regards to allowing other people in and letting them to not only help me, but to love me. I guess we just have to wait and see what happens. But I accepted the challenge. My friend in London is holding me to account on a daily basis and is super excited to watch me squirm while I do it. And as such, let Servitude September and all of its helpfulness begin…. with a bit of luck, it might just change my life!