I was a very eager young man and missionary that used to repeat this phrase a great deal. Recently, though, I’ve grown to hate it as I’ve tried to put my finger on why and this is what I’ve come up with.
-Its inherently passive. As a missionary I thought I was being very helpful when I asked this. I even asked our dinner hosts if I could help clear the dishes. But then I had a companion that just did it. The people never said no or stop it, they said thank you. The point to me was that initiative matters in service. People don’t want to be a burden, even when they could use some help there is always a bit of reticence in asking for it. Asking this is a way to seem like you are being helpful in what could be seen as the laziest way possible. Again, I don’t doubt the questioner’s sincerity, but the approach and effect is lacking.
-I understand not wanting to be overbearing and that would make people ask how they can help instead of just helping. The difference between showing imitative in helping and being overbearing is a fine one. One of my greatest fears is that I am coming on too strong. But those with social skills can recognize the difference. It’s not overbearing to give sincere and targeted invitation that is more specific than anything I can do to help. Something along the lines of, “why don’t your kids come over for a play date this afternoon”, could do a great deal for a struggling single parent. Or maybe delicately asking, “do you mind if we make you dinner this weekend.” Thats a way to not be overbearing but be far more specific and helpful than the passive, “is there anything I can do to help.”
– I also hate the phrase because it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what I need in my life. I have said stuff at church activities like, “I’m a sucker for free food.” “I love playing table top games.” As a result, I show up to the activities in the ward that offer free food or a game night. (Though please don’t make me play Apples to Apples. It is the Taylor Swift of games, where you think it’s okay the first time but then you hear it another thousand times and you feel like poking your ear drums out with a pencil.) A little thoughtful reflection on how to help me might include inviting me to dinner, or hosting a game night. With a little more thought and access to social media they might realize that I’m open to having hang out friends, I work from home and often get cabin fever so by 5pm every work day I would accept just about any invitation. I’m a single parent so play dates are often hard to arrange as the literal odd man out. (Married women get really weird around a single male so despite having a really awesome daughter she gets shut out of many social engagements.) But instead of showing initiative with one of those items, I still get asked if there is anything they can do.
-I’m also a bit annoyed with the phrase because at least on two occasions, I have been very clear in what I needed and nobody helped. Example 1. I had a person in the Elder’s Quorum visit, (unannounced, which is a complaint for another day.) He gave me the key question and I actually answered. I had a tree in the front yard with numerous dead branches and leaves and I needed some pruning advice before the HOA got on my case. (Which is also another rant for another day.) Not only did I tell him about it, but he walked past it on the way in and out of my house. He was going to talk to somebody in the ward about it and have them contact me. It never happened. I eventually did it on my own. The pruning job wasn’t pretty, but a year later the tree has grown back nicely so I guess I did it right.
-Example 2. About a year ago I had an emergency appendectomy. It started at dinner, where it was tough to describe but I had severe pain on both sides of my body, and my stomach felt “tight.” I didn’t feel like eating, any pressure on my stomach hurt, and I couldn’t sleep from the pain. By 1 am I couldn’t sleep anyway so I figured at the very least the emergency room could give me some (very expensive) painkillers. I’m glad I went, as I found out it was an infected appendix, but hadn’t burst yet. They put me on morphine, called an ambulance, took me to their surgical hospital (and the trip cost more than my last trip to London, damn our medical system is pricey), they put me on diladud (the same stuff my ex got when she gave birth), and I was off into a sea of anesthesia and post op recovery.
I made sure to post online in the ward’s webpage. I don’t have any family living in town, as I moved to Las Vegas just to be closer to my daughter. Nobody from the ward visited, nobody even gave me a ride home. Because it was a Wednesday, which is our exchange day, and I guess because I looked pathetic in those hospital scrubs, my ex gave me a ride home from the hospital and dropped my daughter off at the same time. I had trouble walking, my jeans rubbed against my oozing scars so I could barely move, and I could barely stand up straight from the pain in my abdomen…but Wednesday was my shopping day which meant I had no food, and I still needed to pick up my pain medication. I posted an update on the thread asking for help like a medicine run…and got crickets.
I staggered around Walmart like I was in the Walking Dead. My shopping cart acted like a good walker, and somehow, despite being pretty woozy and in pain, I finished all of my grocery shopping. (I was also dating somebody at the time, and had to cancel a date to watch Rick Springfield on Fremont Street. I strongly implied that I would love her forever if she brought me some food, and her response was “I can’t I’m having a bad day.” Well la de freaking da, don’t let THE HOLES IN MY STOMACH interrupt your bad day. If my lifesaving emergency surgery didn’t earn a little tlc from a supposed romantic interest, I can’t imagine how selfish and needy she would have been as my wife. Needless to say that ended the relationship for me.)
Conclusion:
I couldn’t find the post, but Hawkgirl wrote a post where she described how many men are out of the compassion or empathy network. I can’t help but think that if I was a relief society sister that just gave birth, I would have been overflowing with offers to help and dinners made for me. I think that because I’ve seen it in my ward a great deal. But being a man or just the product of a neglectful support system, I felt ignored in my time of greatest need, despite everybody falling over themselves asking how they can help me.
I understand that people are busy, and that people don’t want to be overbearing. They have lives and I’m not the center of theirs. I’m not asking for a parade either. But I asked for help, really needed it, and I tend to think that people who are so eager to constantly offer it, might actually do it when I ask. As a result of these two examples especially, when people enthusiastically offer to help, but then don’t when I ask for it, I tend to think they are full of crap. It seems like empty charity theater to me.
So is there anything you can do for me? Yes, please stop asking me.
Wheat & Tares 
Appendectomy is the worst.
Your ward and girlfriend suck… No offense.
Next time in working in Vegas I’d be happy to help.
I agree that although the Gospel is for everyone, the reality is older singles, men in particular are outcasts in the Church culture and organization just as much as the oft discussed LGBT, etc.
I can’t recommend strongly enough the effect having an EQ email listserv has had on taking care of such needs in our ward. Yes, the technology is dated, but while relatively few men in my ward use social media, all of them, old and young, have and use their email accounts. We recently added in the high priests and it’s been a great, great tool. I guarantee if you had sent an email to the guys in our ward, you would have gotten a strong response. I’m sorry the ward didn’t step up to help.
Also, I know my response comes across as boastful, but I’ve really been amazed how well the listserv gets guys involved in supporting each other. If your EQ doesn’t have one, please, please recommend it. Google Groups is an easy and free way to set it up and it avoids the pain of going to LDS.org and trying to gather email addresses.
My wife and I invited two of the single men in our ward over for supper last Sunday. It is something that we do every now and again. One had recently moved into our ward so this was his first time. He was so excited that he was almost overcome with emotion. He said that in the twenty plus years since his divorce no one has ever asked him over to share a meal.
I’m guessing this is something I do out of my non-member past when people were actually friendly in a meaningful way and not in a Church like show of compassion but with little follow up. When I joined the Church I said, and I continue to say, that I did so in spite of the people. Most Mormons are idiots which is a term my wife prefers I not use or sheep if you prefer the Savior’s term.
If you expect anything else then what you have been getting and you are disappointed I would say you need to adjust your expectations or you will continue to be disappointed.
My ward would miss anything on Facebook.
My last ward would catch things and jump right in.
Sounds like a rough week.
Sounds like a really bad week. Ouch!
Join with you in hating that question. Don’t ask if you don’t mean it. Some decades ago, back when I was more naive and took people at their word, I had a few bad experiences on responding to that question. On one occasion, shortly after we bought our first house we spent days washing down walls, as the previous owners had been heavy smokers. Come Sunday we were exhausted. Anyway, I was asked why I was so tired and explained what I’d been doing. Well, I got a big lecture on how we should have asked for help. They’d always be willing to help etc. Anyway, at the time neither my husband nor I drove, and we wanted to be able to get to the temple from to time and were told that the sister who’d happened to be the one who’d lectured me, and her husband went down regularly and would probably be able to give us a lift some time. My husband was dubious about asking them, but I said that the sister had told me if we needed help we should ask. Well! The way they responded they were clearly extremely offended at being asked. I was so taken aback, and quite hurt, after everything she’d said earlier. It wasn’t as though I liked asking for help, but she’d been so insistent in her lecture.
First of all, I am a woman and I am not single, I know that makes a difference. I am not one to beat around the bush and I am a planner. I usually am a very self sufficient and try to plan ahead for my needs. But when I do need help I ask. And, I follow up. I hold people to their word. I also tell them to be upfront and honest with me. My attitude is to be straight with people. Someone once told me you have to teach people how to treat you. I learn quickly who I can rely on and who I can’t. When I offer to help people I try to predict in my mind what they might ask for. Some things I am not willing to do, such as babysit, so I specifically mention what I cannot do that but offer other things I am willing to do.
Our relief society does a decent job of bringing a few meals when a woman has a baby or surgery. It kind of makes me chuckle a bit, because I normally cook all the meals. So when DW gets an assignment to bring someone dinner, she is really signing me up to do it, and they assign people to bring is dinner when I can do it anyway, but not when I’m not available. I’m not complaining, but I’m saying they provide service that isn’t as timely as it could be.
Our ward has a Facebook page, but when DW asked for help with something we got zero responses, while someone else in a similar situation got tons of offers of help. It could have been bad luck, but it feels like being left out of the clique.
What I’ve learned is that service opportunities are time sensitive. It’s better to help someone with what they really need and when they really need it, rather than to offer to help on a monthly schedule. But it isn’t always easy recognize when and what a person needs, nor is it easy to do it with in the midst of our own busy lives.
Wow, freakin amazing…… no one contacted you? That is unfathomable, what the heck!
What makes me chuckle is your reference to meals being brought in for women who have a baby, my thoughts on the whole meal for a baby thing is….. really? You have 9 mo to prepare for that, a person can’t make freezer meals for themselves? (And before I get hate comments, I’ve had 3 kids, I made freezer meals for my family, but yes, people brought meals in to my family……🙄)
But yet someone has an emergency, like., You , and no one can be bothered…..SMH….. I’d send over a freezer meal if we lived close by! I have frozen brisket left over from my daughters wedding, I can always ship it and it would be thawed by the time it gets there!🤔🤪
It’s a hard lesson when needs like that arise and you realize that the stories you’ve been hearing over the pulpit your whole life about wards coming together to support their members may be more prescriptive than descriptive of how social groups operate and that (particularly in dysfunctional wards) social pecking orders may rule, rather than the expected Christian charity.
Fortunately there are good wards that cover many needs, but it takes an unusual amount of social energy, strong positive leadership, and a religiously committed and geographically-close community. The normal networking is that individuals or families help out at moves and give blessings and lessons and show up to activities and say prayers in church and so forth, and then when the giving ward member or a family has needs, everyone else makes time and puts in the effort to help. However, in wards that have poor or stressed leadership, too many needs and too few people to help, or are too large geographically for people to be realistically involved much in each others’ lives, even the basic networking you’d expect within a ward may break down.
There’s no perfect solution since this is partly a Mormon problem, partly an American problem, and partly a human problem, but with this discussion and your experiences in mind, I’m going to be open today at church and seek some inspiration if there is someone who needs attention or help.
Wow. It is hard to read what a bad time you had. I do hope you can find someone that you feel comfortable asking that is reliable.
I came across harsh in my previous comment. I apologize for that.
I agree with Not a Cougar, having some kind of email connection with other members helps so much! Especially in our ward, the RS has this down pat. If there is ever a need they are aware of (that is key) it goes out as an email and on our Facebook RS group. Usually the response is immediate. The RS is very good at helping each other the majority of the time. The RS program is set up for us to teach and mentor each other both spiritually and temporally. I love that about RS. My husband, who grew up in a home with a father that had a lot of health problems, did not learn a lot things that many learn, such as how to care and fix a car, and how to fix things around the house. I have often said it would be so nice if the EQ had some kind of program where they could teach each other these skills. He just has to ask someone or Google it.
Like has been mentioned earlier, we all do need to pay closer attention to those that are older and single, especially men, because often they can fall through the cracks, so to speak. I also try to be aware of those that are new to our area and have no family here. I have never lived near family. I have always had to rely heavily on friends and ward members when I need help. Thank you, morgan2205, for reminding me that I need to be more aware.
A person needing help from his or her neighbor needs to ask, by direct contact. If someone says no, ask someone else.
Posting a generalized need on Facebook is not a sincere request for help. Despising an entire group because no one responded to such a posting is unfair.
I think the individual concerned is the one to decide on the sincerity of their need, or otherwise. What would motivate you to make this judgement?
I didn’t categorize the sincerity of the need. I said that posting a generalized need on Facebook is not a sincere request for help. A person needing help from his or her neighbor needs to ask, by direct contact.
One solution is to put the burden of responsibility back on the poor and/or needy, doesn’t feel like a very Christian solution though
ji – That’s one of the coldest things I’ve ever read on W&T. As someone who has a really, really hard time asking for help, I totally get why the op would have posted a general request rather than calling someone specific. It has nothing to do with sincerity and much more to do with (for me anyway) embarrassment, fear of rejection, and not wanting to burden someone who already carries a lot.
As to the bigger topic, I see ‘Is there anything I can do for you’ as being about civility and role-playing rather than any actual desire to engage. I hate it. I do it. Because it’s considered polite. Much the way ‘How are you?’ is polite. But no one really wants to hear any answer to that question other than, ‘Great, How are you?’ The problem for me then, is that in Mormonism we somehow take this civility/politeness to mean that we are engaging with another person or we are full-filling a diving mandate to care for our neighbors.
I didn’t have phone numbers of key individuals in the ward,I haven’t seen a home teacher in years, I don’t have family that lives in town (as I explained), I work from home so I don’t have coworkers in the same time zone, my closest friends live states away, the ward has had tons of turnover with a reorganization and moves, my phone was dying and it was my only contact with the outside world once I was admitted. Our ward website is very active in coordinating service so I posted a very specific and sincere request for help to a vital local support system. The fact that I have to explain the nature of my request says a great deal about how horrible your comment is JI. Next time I’m in the hospital I’ll make sure to let my ass hang in the wind as I shuffle door to door in my hospital gown “directly” asking for help. Oh, and I’ll magically ignore the pain, anesthesia, and pain killers to become perfectly lucid so I can ask for help in exactly the correct way. Then I won’t have any feelings about it, it was only life saving surgery and my greatest moment of need in the last decade.
You might benefit from Hedgehog’s post where somebody told her to ask, then criticized her for asking. Your criticisms were so ridiculous and awful I actually miss the BoM historicity trolls a bit.
It’s a choice, isn’t it? Make a request for help directly to another human (and then if necessary to another human) versus making a posting on Facebook.
If one really needs help, I recommend asking another human directly. After all, from what I’m reading here, posting on Facebook doesn’t seem to be working so well for many posters..
Try it — ask your community or ward neighbor directly!
hi
Did you or did you not read his reply?
He was too ill to go out, and is not in the Zion Curtain where you could just go nextdoor.
I find myself agreeing with you often, but this is ridiculous.
Wow, JI, I thought you were a sincere Christian. Clearly that is not the case. I’m really disappointed as I thought you were more Christlike than that.
“It’s a choice, isn’t it? ”
You mean fear?
My shyness?
My feeling alienated from others?
I don’t even know what to say to that…
I am a sincere Christian. I believe in helping my neighbor.
If my neighbor ever needs help, I hope he will ask. Many previous neighbors have. But if he puts a notice on Facebook, and then hates me for not helping, that would be unfair. I never read Facebook and don’t have an account.
Others that do have Facebook might assume someone else is responding, or they might be busy with their own troubles and might not be able to take responsibility for solving their neighbor’s problem. .
So when a person needs help from a neighbor, I hope he or she will ask directly — human to human. Posting a generalized need on Facebook doesn’t seem to be working for posters here.
And posting a generalized need on Facebook and then hating his or her neighbors for not responding — and thinking of them as unChristian — is grossly unfair. It is sad when a person who needs help doesn’t get it — to minimize the likelihood of that outcome, I recommend asking directly.
ReTx,
What do you want? You want to be able to post a need on Facebook, and demand that someone from your ward promptly solve your need?
That is unreasonable. Nothing in the Church works by compulsion; but rather, by persuasion, long-suffering, gentleness and meekness, and love unfeigned. Maybe your neighbor can help, maybe not — but we love him or her still. We do the best we can, and bear with others as best we can.
Yes, a shy person might have a harder time asking for needed help than another person. Life isn’t fair, is it. But if a shy person needs help, I hope he or she will find the courage to ask another human directly rather than posting the need on Facebook.
JI, stop digging a hole. You’re clearly judgmental and heartless. Every comment you continue to make only makes you look worse. Please stop.
ji –
I’m not trying to say anyone should be compelled to help anyone else. I’m not trying to prove that FB is the best way to go for asking for help (I see it as unreliable as some posts don’t seem to get seen much, perhaps this is even what happened to the op. Unless one knows for sure the group is super active, it probably isn’t a good choice.).
I am trying to show that sitting back and waiting for someone in need to ask for help by contacting individuals one-on-one means a group of people within the ward will never get help. That being introverted, non-social, shy, in-a-socially-isolated-demographic, etc., etc., is real. Being unable (for whatever reason) to call a stranger or someone you only know casually when you are in dire need is not insincerity. Calling it out as insincerity comes off as an excuse not to be bothered to help (I’m assuming that’s not true of you, but that is the way your comments come off). Calling it insincerity or ‘It’s a choice’ comes off as ‘solve your own problems if you won’t ask me for help in the way I want to be asked.’
I didn’t want to leave everyone with the impression that my experience has been wholly bad. Though the events of my earlier comment stand out in my memory primarily because it all happened on the one day. The lecture about asking for help when needed in the morning and the offense at being asked to help that very evening. Once we’d been in that area a while we did get to know who could be asked to help in emergency situations (we were a long way from family), and they weren’t the ones making the most noise about it. They were the ones who could be observed quietly helping others.
There are incredible people in my current ward and stake tirelessly serving eachother. We’ve been on the receiving end of that, inspite of the relative insularity of our somewhat introverted family, and I hope we do our part in the giving as well. To PJP’s first comment, I would agree that it’s helpful to outline the kinds of service you’re able to give, I try to do that. It is also helpful to get general notification of a need via email, text or otherwise (though I’m not on facebook). I’ve responded to those in the past.
But it is incredibly hard when you’re new to an area, far from previous support systems. And it really isn’t as simple as just asking, even when an open invitation to do just that had apparently been extended.
And ji,
It isn’t the fact that she wasn’t able to help when asked that was upsetting, but the manner of her response to being asked. It’s one thing to say ‘I’m so sorry I won’t be able to help you with that’, a whole other thing to act so offended at being asked (especially when you’ve previously explicitly stated that you could be asked).
”I am trying to show that sitting back and waiting for someone in need to ask for help by contacting individuals one-on-one means a group of people within the ward will never get help.”
I agree. That is sad.
There are two ways to change that dynamic.
One way is for the person needing help to directly ask another human for help. This is the better and the ideal approach, but here it is met with hostility.
The other way is for someone else to meet the need, even without having been asked. This is not an ideal approach, as it is fraught with so many uncertainties and risk of disappointment. Some people have to rely on this approach — some people may choose to rely on this approach — but it is not the ideal approach. Sometimes, it works, and it is wonderful when it does. It works more often than we know, but it doesn’t always work. An added disadvantage to this approach is that sometimes, as seen in this thread, the person with a need who relies on this approach (either of necessity or voluntarily) and whose need is not met by someone else then begins to dislike and impugn those who did not help. That is unfair. It is especially unfair to paint with a broad brush that Latter-day Saints are uncaring and unChristian — I know from my own experience that this is not true. Even so, I acknowledge that some needs are left unmet — I do so with sadness, but without hating my fellow Latter-day Saints.
MH, You might want to re-check the W&T commenting policy. You aren’t in compliance.
**Head hits desk at this point. Why am I trying here exactly…?**
Luckily in my ward we have a great Yahoo Group so I’m not limited to the two options you presented as a way to change the dynamic. I can… ya know… throw a note out on the group asking for help. I guess if a few people consider me ‘insincere’ because I do that rather than contacting people directly, that’s their problem not mine. Social Media is a pretty amazing thing. Thank goodness the church uses it.
Rarely in life are there only two options to solve a problem…
still digging I see.
As a general rule, Facebook is capricious and unreliable. Who knows what Facebook’s algorithm decided to show other ward members that day? Maybe the members of a clique got more of a response because Facebook saw that they interacted more with each other, therefore their requests for help would be more visible to each other, than the request of someone who they don’t interact much with. It’s not like Facebook tells you who did or did not see your post. Just Likes. Some people look at FB constantly, but others are hardly on their. It’s not exactly intended to be a timely method of communication, unless it’s a big group chat on Messenger. I would be careful about judging people based on a lack of responses to a post on Facebook.
A couple of things to consider for the future:
1st, if you don’t succeed, try, try, again — and preferably across multiple mediums. One time I had to call and text my sister-in-law, the RS President, and her 1st counselor before I got help watching my kids while running to the ER with my wife. One was on vacation. Another was in the middle of a play. Another had already gone to bed and her phone was on vibrate.
2nd, if something tends to fall on the RS, reach out to them. Their motto isn’t “charity never faileth, except for single men and single dads.” Your “ministering brother” or EQ President should be able to help coordinate this, if needed, but I would skip the bureaucracy and go straight to the RS presidency. I don’t know if that’s “proper” procedure, and I would totally expect them to try to get your ministering brother involved, but it might be more effective in getting the help you need in a timely manner.