A few months ago, I was looking through the comment section of my blog and I found this comment:
[Everyday Adventures With Katie] Contact
just a friendly web developer i notices your site that does not have and SSL. Your hosting company offer one for free: https://www.bluehost.com/help/article/how-to-activate-a-free-wordpress-ssl
The e-mail address for the commentor was listed as none@none.com and the commentor was identified as Friendly Web Developer.
I am really struck by the helpfulness and kindness of this comment. I saw the comment several months ago and I cannot help feeling grateful every time that I think about it. I have even just opened the comment section so that I could read it again.
You see, an SSL is a certificate that communicates to internet security that your website is safe and won’t cause a computer crash. What this person did not know, is that I had been trying to figure out how to get one of those for a few years.
I am not the most technologically advanced person, and I am the first person to admit that. Still, I am proud of my myself for starting a blog, migrating it from a hosted format, where most things are done for you, to self-hosted format and doing all the maintenance on it myself. I used a book to teach me how to do the migration, but I migrated when my three-year-old was a newborn baby and I could not figure out the SSL problem at the time. Then it fell by the wayside, but I knew it was something that I needed to figure out because when I opened my website there was an icon telling me that my site was unsecure.
When I received this comment on my blog, I was grateful because it was the help that I needed but I kept forgetting to ask someone who might know. Also, it is so hard to ask for help.
Some people find it very easy to ask for help. A dear friend, T. is one such person. She seeks out opinions and assistance from people in the know often. Numerous times, she has asked me for book suggestions for herself or for her family and I loved being asked and was glad to help.
There is a phenomenon called The Ben Franklin Effect, which has been written about extensively in many books and magazines. Essentially, Ben Franklin wrote that contrary to what you might think, if you want someone to like you better, ask them for a favor. People will like you more because you are asking them for help, especially if they didn’t like you before or were neutral to you. This is one reason it is good to ask people for help.
When researching this post, I learned that most people are like me, and do not understand how asking for help can benefit both the asker and the helper. After the ask, the helper feels the benefit of being able to provide something for another person and the asker gets the help that they need.
I have a very hard time asking people for help. I always worry that I will be putting someone out by asking for help. That is why getting this help about my lack of SSL meant so much to me.
I used to feel let down when other people did not notice how much I was struggling with something. I used to judge people for not realizing how much I needed assistance. Then I decided that people are people and do not always notice things. I realized that if I wanted help, I was going to have to ask for it. Still sometimes I am still too proud to ask for help.
When this anonymous commentor offered me help without me soliciting it, it was like they were noticing a need that I had without me broadcasting my need.
How often in life does that happen?
This commentor’s unsolicited help makes me want to pay it forward and make sure I am open to seeing the needs of others.
To this mystery helper, I say, “Thank you! I appreciate what you have given me. It means more to me than a simple assist. I hope that I can do the same for others.”
Thank you again. I will pass on the kindness.
