“Pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!” – Ecclesiastes 4:10
“When I was younger, so much younger than today / I never needed anybody’s help in any way / But now these days are gone, I’m not so self-assured / Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.” That great Beatles hit Help! was going through my mind recently, as many of the Beatles’ classic songs sometimes do, except this time something struck me as the lyrics rolled through my head that “Yikes!” this song is the story of my life. Maybe it is the story of many of our lives.
To personalize the Beatle’s lyrics a bit, when I left for college many years ago I walked into my dorm room with two pieces of equipment, a new Smith-Corona electric typewriter courtesy of my parents, and a portable stereo that played LP record albums courtesy of my own savings account, high-tech equipment back in those days. Add to that pen and paper and textbooks, that is all I would need to prepare to conquer the world, and I was capable of doing it all without “anybody’s help in any way.”
“But now these days are gone, I’m not so self-assured.” Recently, I had to buy a new laptop as mine had become slow, unreliable, and obsolete as far as Microsoft’s support system was concerned. So, even though the computer salesman assured me that all my data would transfer seamlessly to the new computer, and that everything would work just the same, when I got home I could neither locate most of my files, nor did the “newly updated” software work the same. “Help!” I cried out as I rushed back into the store – more than once. “Won’t you please, please help me?” I begged, practically on my knees.
“Now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors.” One of the greatest benefits of aging is the humility it brings with it – from believing I can single-handedly conquer the world at age eighteen to the reality in old age that I need help with the TV remote, using my smartphone to make a dinner reservation, a doctor’s appointment, or buy a movie ticket. Thanks to the kind, patient gentleman at the computer store who “helped me get my feet back on the ground” with my new computer, and to all the many other helpers out there. . . Help! Oh, how that great Beatles hit tells the story of my life!
“But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!”