The Difficulty in Asking People for Help

I was soliciting donations at Wal-Mart this afternoon for a medical mission to Guatemala in March (please contact me if you'd like to support me/us:D).  In the two hours I was there asking shoppers to buy items we needed and donate them to us when they came out, I got half a shopping cart filled, and I'm extremely thankful to those who were kind enough to help us out.  The few people who stopped out of the goodness of their hearts were more than I could expect; as a way to temper any potential disappointment, I don't expect anything from anybody, and when someone exceeds that notion, I'm not surprised, but I am grateful that there are good people in this world.


But it is difficult to get people to donate to causes.  Back in St. Louis, I would help my temple fundraise when there were any huge natural disasters, such as Hurricane Katrina, the Sichuan Earthquake, and Typhoon Morakot.  I used to think that it was more of a Chinese thing, since we would frequent Chinese businesses, that people would pass us by, deliberately ignore us, say "no" with or without a "thank you" (wait, what exactly are you thanking me for?  For asking you and letting you say no to me?), especially because a common Chinese stereotype is that we can be stingy.  I remember one instance in which I was fundraising in front of a Chinese grocery store; one guy completely ignored me and went in, and he was struggling with his groceries when he was coming out.  I helped him with the groceries and the door, and he kept going on without so much as a "thank you".  Eh.  You shrug it off and feel sorry for him that he's so dour.


Today though, I realized that the difficulty in getting people to contribute to causes spans cultures.  As a disclaimer, I'm not berating them at all.  It's within their right to walk past and refuse to help.  It's just a reminder how hard it is to stand outside practically begging for assistance.  It'll make me think the next time I'm walking and I come across another volunteer soliciting donations for one's cause.


That difficulty caused me to be slow in terms of asking people.  There were times when I just let some folks slide by since it looked like they didn't want to be bothered.  It took me a while to warm up, but once I got into a groove, I got people to start taking flyers, and donations started streaming in.  Being bold is challenging; New Year's resolutions are not supposed to be easy.  This is also the same when asking for help under fear of rejection.  But I promised myself not to miss any more chances, and so here we go.  I unknowingly broke a condition that our group had agreed to when soliciting, but oh well.  No harm, no foul.


I've always been slow in asking people for something.  I'm constantly afraid that I'd be annoying.  My PI always had to constantly tell me to come find her when I got stuck on something instead of pounding my brain against a brick wall.  I believe this comes from my perhaps misguided pride and independence and wanting to figure things out by myself, as well as avoiding the potential of being bothersome.  On the other hand, when I would ask a question to the founder of a certain K-Pop website for which I was writing, she would tell me to go figure it out on my own.  There's nothing wrong with that, but then, I think I would trust a PhD with whom I've had almost a decade-long working relationship than a college student for whom running a K-Pop fansite basically fell into her lap (I shall say that I do admire what she's built in the website; I wouldn't have been able to do that).


So in summary (in what has turned out to be almost a stream-of-consciousness post), there are multiple folds in the difficulty of asking for help: personal characteristics, timing, and the willingness of others.  But once again, it's definitely heartwarming when people are eager to do so.


And Mom, I wrote this in half-an-hour during my designated break time.  So no, I'm not wasting time.  You can continue to sleep easily now.