helping ourselves

Sometimes we get thrown into situations that just seem to be going in a downward spiral direction. As soon as we hit rock bottom, the climb upwards is something that often feels too difficult...

The gradual descent downwards is easy, but the effort required to ascent back up, is likely going to be rather difficult. Think gravity defying! Imagine now we have to move upwards via the same spiral, turning round and round, and slowly up bit by bit... and all the time gravity pulling us back down...Sounds tough, doesn't it?

But is staying at the bottom a choice? What if we decided that the effort is too much to go back up, and hence, decided just to stay where we are and accept fate? But often times, the ground at the bottom is almost like quicksand. Quicksand as we know, is unable to support any weight and hence, it'll behave more like liquid. So imagine this, a person hits rock bottom, and landed on quicksand. At first, he/she will feel that the legs are trapped. Can't move. Some struggle ensued, and deeper and deeper, that person sinks...

So, if that's the case, what can be done? The person who is trapped in the quicksand and at the bottom of the spiral, often can't see much except the hopelessness of the situation. There will be anger, as to why he/she landed in this situation. There will be times when he/she looks back at the sequence of events, and questioned why so and so didn't help at that point, why a person of his/her capability ended up in this mess, or to summarize, he/she may have this thought, "Why is the whole world against me? What have I done to deserve this?"

If we imagine the above analogy of the quicksand, it will be logical to say that should we land ourselves in that situation, then first of all is to seek help. The longer the delay, the deeper we'll sink. So in order to seek help, we must first of all realize and be aware of the situation that we are currently facing.

Step 1: "I have yet to learn how to overcome this. And I will seek help."


So now that we have called for help. Imagine a qualified person coming along with the rescue gear or primitively a strong stick for us to grab hold with. But if we chose not to grab that stick, or rope, will we get out of the situation even if someone was nearby with the help? Think about it.

Step 2: "Help others to help ourselves."


Of course, after getting out of the most pressing situation, there is still that upward struggle to deal with. But hey, is there a need to be in it alone? Even soccer team needs a whole stadium of people to cheer for them! So gather our supporters, and take those steps to help ourselves.

If we have seen the bottom, it is now time go to back up to breathe the fresh air once more.

Step 3: "Think positive encouraging thoughts."