Just Ask by Nathaniel

Just Ask by Nathaniel - July 2025 Scholarship Essay

I would tell my younger self not to be afraid to ask for help. As a kid, I tried to do everything on my own. I would never ask for help. Asking for help felt like a weakness. As if I were incompetent and needy of something I was “old enough” to do on my own. This was a standard I only held for myself. I would always offer my help to those around me, but I struggled to allow myself to receive it. One day, I was riding my bicycle on the street when a car drove down. I tried to make a turn, but it was too sharp, and I fell. The front wheel folded onto the body of the bike, with my right leg in between them, causing a fracture in my tibia. My left leg was on top of the bike so that I couldn’t push myself up from the awkward angle. Luckily, my little sister was outside and was able to call over my stepdad to help me up. Of course, I denied the help, but they helped me anyway when they saw I wasn’t making progress. This is probably the weakest I’ve felt in my life. Due to my incompetence, I got into a problem I couldn't get out of by myself. Throughout my healing process, it was just a repeating process of not wanting and denying help, then being helped out anyway, because I needed it. I would love to say that this taught me that it was ok to ask for help, but unfortunately, it did the opposite. I viewed myself as being weak and needing help, and I hated that feeling. I didn’t learn until many years later that asking for help is ok, because humans function in communities that help each other. Without help, I wouldn’t have made it half as far as I did with the help I received.