I am fortunate, in having thick skin and don’t really ever waste time worrying about what people think about me. That even goes for the time before I got injured and has only been further reinforced as a consequence. People will talk. They always have. And they always will. Everyone is open to scrutiny from everybody else, it doesn’t matter who you might be, because none of us are safe. It doesn’t matter what you say, what you do or even how you dress we will always be scrutinized and commented on by others. Being disabled and a foreigner in Japan I stand out from the crowd more than most but curiosity and scrutiny is the nature of the masses in any country. Like vultures they identify the weak and swoop in to pick at, to taunt and torment. And if we let it, it can get to us, their opinions can be hurtful but that’s all it is, an opinion in a world where everybody has one. But, really what does it matter what other people might think of you, after all, it’s their right to think whatever they might please and it really doesn’t matter what anyone might have to say about me in the comfort of their own homes or even to my face should it ever get to that. I refuse to be defined by the opinion of any Nattering Nabob when it’s only an attempt to make themselves feel superior to the person they think I might be. They don’t know me or my story and their opinion about me is as irrelevant to me as mine is to theirs. There is no rhyme or reason beyond making the other person feel superior to you in some way or another, in whatever way they might see fit to achieve. Ultimately, no one is better than you no matter what. No matter the colour of their skin, their religion, their occupation, nor anything else for that matter. No one!
Despite being fully aware of the pointlessness of these games, sometimes it can be hard to not get disheartened and take everything to heart. Deep down inside I know those opinions don’t really matter at all but it can be hard to rise above the sticks and stones when they come flying. It can take a lot to suppress your emotions when people are seemingly doing their utmost just to bring you down. But, it’s important to take the high road and learn to turn the other cheek. No matter who you are, as long as you’re doing the right thing and you’re interested in creating value and contributing to the world, you shouldn’t care what anyone else thinks or says.
After all, people will always find someone to talk about. Since the dawn of history people have always had an opinion about others, especially those that can be perceived as being different in some way or other. Why do people torment others with no real reason? Why do those perceived as different get cast out? There is something amiss about our lives that allows such divisiveness to become so ingrained into society that we seek to cast out those ‘misfits’ who are too fat, too skinny, too dark, too white, too religious, too fanatical, too clever, too dumb, or just simply too different.
No matter who you are you in the Garden of Life. Those negative weeds will only ever seek to choke the life out of you and against their chorus of dissent have you believe that your self-worth is defined by an approval rating. But it should never be like that. Nobody can ever know what you’ve been through. They don’t know your story, your trials, your tribulations, or just how far you have dragged yourself through the mud just to get yourself to where you are now. The happiness barometer is often influenced by the he-said-she-said pipeline. What comes through that pipeline is toxic, it sickens us and makes us feel depressed, but only if we chose to drink from that poisoned well of negativity, jealousy and uncomprehending malice.
When it all comes down to it, we can never really know what has happened to the people who surround us out on the streets whenever we leave the comfort of our homes. I am reminded of a poignant story, perhaps just an urban myth but still poignant nonetheless. A middle-aged lady was sat on a train, sat immediately opposite her was another lady with two young children in tow, the children were being particularly unruly and badly behaved. Completely out of control, they were shouting and screaming, jumping on the seats, cursing and fighting amongst themselves. The lady sat there shocked, how the other lady could just sit there and ignore the behaviour of her children as they disrupted the whole carriage and all the other passengers on the train. Eventually, something stirred inside the lady and she felt compelled to approach the other lady and ask her just why she was failing to control her badly behaved offspring. The lady looked back with a sorry expression and apologized profusely before silently staring out the train window. “I am so sorry,” she said, “I just don’t know what to do”. After a lengthy pause, the lady told her what had happened. A few hours earlier the Police had called to tell her husband had just been killed in a car accident and she was heading to the hospital to identify his body. She had been wondering just what to tell her children, to explain that their father was gone forever. Tears fell down her cheek as the other passengers looked on in sorrow. “I’m sorry”, the middle-aged lady said, “I had no idea”.
More than anything else, it is entirely futile to pay too much attention to the vagaries of other people’s opinions, you should trust your own intuition and who you are deep down inside. Trust in who you are and why you are doing the things you are doing. At one point or other, even the most successful people in the world were ridiculed about the way they had chosen to go about their business. The point is that you have to do what’s right for you, and not act on what other people think about you or what you’re doing. Nobody is perfect. I know that I most certainly am not, that’s for sure and I don’t pretend to be anything otherwise. All I am trying to do in this world is be true to myself and my motivations, it shouldn’t matter what other people’s opinions are of me. At the end of the day, when I come to the end of this life, none of that will matter. What will matter will be my experiences and the value I brought to this world and the love I leave in my wife and family’s hearts, not the opinions of strangers.
You can’t please all the people all of the time. No matter what I do or decide; someone somewhere is going to be upset. And someone else is going to have an opinion about the way I go about living my life. They will judge me on what I’d done for my education, my career, who my friends are, the places where I spend my time, the hobbies I choose and everything else in between. How can I expect to appease and cater to the opinions of all those people out there who differ so widely from my perspective? How can I expect to please them all? It’s of course completely impossible and we’d all be far better advised not to allow other people’s opinions of us to dictate how we feel about anything. Why is their opinion the right opinion? It’s not. It’s subjective. My decisions are steeped in the present and the circumstances that surround my life, not theirs. I’m trying to do the best for me and that’s all that should matter.
Everybody is different and special in their own unique way. Differences should be exalted, we’re all the product of different experiences, different backgrounds, different values and different beliefs. What’s good for me might not be good for anyone else and I am not arrogant to enough to believe that it is, because there’s no magic guidebook to living our lives, a neat little box to pull every decision out of. Just think back to the movie ‘Jurassic Park‘ and the character, ‘Ian Malcolm’ (Jeff Goldblum) explaining chaos theory with ‘Dr Sattler‘ (Laura Dern) dropping water on the back of her hand in the same place and not getting the same outcome. With tiny variations, the orientation of the hairs on her hand, the amount of blood distending in her blood vessels causing vastly different outcomes and ultimately making the drop of water’s path impossible to predict or replicate. Even if we all read from the same playbook the results are simply not going to be the same and so, the opinion of other’s cannot hope to produce the uniformity they seek. As long as we continue to give people the power and allow it to negatively affect us, they will continue to judge. They will continue to say things to hurt us and make us feel unworthy of being in our own skins. We have to block out the negativity and be true to ourselves, chase our dreams and not theirs, make our decisions based on what’s good for us and not them.
It’s a truth that everyone is intent on chasing their dreams, but the world is full of things that cannot be changed no matter how hard we try. We are better off simply accepting that there’s no point in hurting yourself trying to change something that cannot be changed. As a bit of a control freak, it took me a long time to reach that conclusion and I’m sure that I hurt myself along the way. But, now I realize that there’s no point wasting time and effort worrying about things that are beyond my control. Sometimes situations change and sometimes they stay the same and if you’re like me and neither omnipotent nor omniscient then there’s not a lot to be done about it.
I cannot stop a typhoon from coming any more than I can magically repair my damaged spine or control my wife’s thoughts and actions but I can prepare for the coming typhoon, fight against my injuries and control my behaviour when I interact with her. I can try to influence people and circumstances, but I can’t force things to go my way. All I can do is focus on my behaviour, leading by example in the way I go about living my life because I have no hope at all of fixing other people who do not wish to be fixed. Whilst not allowing myself to get side-tracked when things don’t go smoothly and getting way-laid by things I have no control over. I’ll do what I can to make positive things happen and deal with the things I have no control over, when and if they come into view.
I know what I don’t want to happen and am doing everything in my power to avoid that outcome by being proactive and not simply complaining about the terrible inconvenience of my disability. I have spent time learning about spinal cord damage and just how other people have got themselves back to walking, trying to take on board as much as possible to tailor a solution to my particular injury. Starting out by analysing the situation, evaluating the repercussions of each course of action, avoiding getting stuck in pointless dead-ends and ultimately trying to resolve my particular issues in the smoothest possible way.
Our lives are a great unpainted canvas and only we can choose what colour to paint it, life is an opportunity to thrive and not simply survive. Follow your true potential and become someone who uplifts others and doesn’t allow other’s to crush your spirit. Make the people who inhabit our lives feel good about themselves by adding value to the world, no matter what anyone might think or say about you. Don’t get sucked into negative thinking and dwell on other people’s poor opinions of you. It doesn’t matter and at the end of the day, you’ll be better for it. You’ll be glad you stayed in the realm of positivity rather than jumping feet first into the ring of negativity and self-destruction.
Happiness is there for everyone to grasp, even me. Set life goals professionally and personally and then stick to them. They don’t need to be altered significantly from the time before I got injured, just amended accordingly. By holding myself true to others, my goals and ideals, my life can be just as meaningful as ever it was before. Just writing this all down has immeasurably improved my state of mind and whether it turns into a book that others might want to read is irrelevant, there is meaning in the creative process and value in setting thoughts free by committing them onto paper.
For me, planning everything in detail was key to focusing my mind on the issues at hand. By taking a good hard look at myself and where I wanted to be, in a manner that was utterly practical and cruelly honest. Now, after 5 years of keeping to the plan, everything has become far more routine and despite setbacks and disappointments along the way, I am still managing to keep to the initial plan and am continuing to make real progress. Fortunately, there was no need to waste time debating the pros and cons, with the desire to walk again so huge, not pushing forward into a regimen of daily rehabilitation was never considered. In time, the setbacks were only learning opportunities and nothing to dissuade me from leaping in feet first to a life of regular strenuous, physical exercise and healthy eating. The goal is to build up my muscle strength, to wake up my sleeping, paralyzed nerves and at the same time try to keep a check on my health in general and my weight, in particular, to stop it from ballooning as often happens when people are forced into a more sedentary lifestyle.
For now, I might not be walking around the house freely as yet, other benefits have appeared alongside my rehabilitation program and I have far more energy, according to the Doctor I visit with every 3 months my health is also improving steadily, my blood test numbers are all moving in the right direction, my weight is being kept under control and I am undoubtedly far stronger than I was when I started out. Of course, it hasn’t all been plain sailing and having broken both my ankles when falling over and a terrifying bout of rhabdomyolysis, that saw my urine turn cola coloured. A steep price has been paid but in currently being out of work I have all the time in the world to make getting back on my feet a number one priority. Eating more healthily was probably something I should have done years before, the necessity for doing so is plainly clear to not allow my weight to increase out of control and make standing up even more difficult than it already is by adding even more kilograms to my frame. In planning this drive towards getting stronger and healthier, I have spent time pouring over books and the internet to learn more about healthy eating, food portions, rehabilitation and exercise for people with Spinal Cord Injuries. As well as cutting out things that I needed to consume far less of and am eating far less than I ever had before, zero salt, far more raw, fresh vegetables, far less alcohol and have cut out cigars completely. All while exercising for at least 5 hours a day, each and every day with only a half-day off every week.
I won’t deny that it feels really good to at long last be making progress in the direction that I need to be going in. It would be remiss of me to take any of my progress for granted, any journey especially one that is relatively unprecedented needs to be made alongside constant review, reaffirmation of the target and the acceptance that it isn’t ever going to always go smoothly. Setbacks are if anything more inevitable than progress. It is important to keep good track of any progress made, to keep an eye out for strengths and weaknesses, to always be aware of areas needing improvement and to maintain a record to allow you to stay on course.
Recording your progress can help you stay focused and catch setbacks in meeting your goals. Setbacks do not mean failure, everybody experiences setbacks, and it’s all part of life. The key is to get back on track as soon as you can. As well as rehabilitation logs tracking just where I was at during this journey, progress can also be tracked using online Body Weight Planning Tools. That allow you tailor your calorie and exercise targets to reach your personal goals within a specified time period, although I never used that option because being unable to stand up properly prevented me from using the bathroom scales to regularly check my weight, though it is one option that I would have been grateful to take.
As with everything else, you can almost guarantee that it’s never going to be smooth sailing and getting caught up in setbacks will be inevitable. The key is to gather myself properly, take stock and learn from any mistakes and try to hit the ground running, to get back on plan as soon as is possible. Never forgetting my ultimate goal for trying to do what I’m trying to achieve before taking the first step to get back on track. Try to plan ahead and predict where the roadblocks might be hiding, drive to the local shopping centre and do your walking in the warm there than out on the streets and catch a cold. It’s always tempting to push too hard and put yourself in a position that results in getting hurt, for me doing balance exercises on the floor is far easier and much less dangerous than standing up on a walker with my back to the wall. For all that the immediacy of achievement might be diminished, it’s much better than falling over and breaking my ankle again and losing months waiting for it to heal, trust me I know from bitter personal experience. Nobody needs to break their ankles twice, just to re-learn the same lesson again. And never forget, don’t be too proud to ask for help, ask friends and family and always try to plan ahead, I most certainly wouldn’t have got so far if it hadn’t been for my wife’s help and that of all the care helpers that visit every day.
Don’t forget to reward yourself either, it doesn’t need to be anything too extravagant either, sharing my successes with my Father on our twice-weekly phone calls, some praise from my wife and a little glass of wine on the weekends is all I need. Hardly leaving the house, I don’t need for much other than the cheap room-wear I spend my days in but I will always take the time to give myself a pat on the back. Not to polish my ego but to acknowledge the progress I’m making and to ward off the negative thoughts that are always lurking nearby by reminding myself how much good I’m doing for my health by getting stronger, moving more and eating healthier.
People with paralysis, just like everybody else, need to work on keeping healthy, eating properly, exercising regularly and other healthy habits are lifelong behaviours, not one-time events. An injury, no matter how significant should never be used as an excuse for giving up on yourself. Always keep an eye on your efforts and seek ways to deal with the planned and unplanned changes in your daily life. Now that healthy eating and regular physical activity are part of my routine as I try to keep things interesting, avoiding slip-ups, and finding ways to cope with whatever life might throw at me.
Staying motivated has never been an issue for me. Yes, some days I just want to rest and take a full day off but I am more scared of doing nothing and getting worse than anything else I could ever wish to imagine. Coping with setbacks is easy if you look at them as being natural stages in the process and accept them as learning opportunities. I am also learning to get better at coping with the negative things that people may say from time to time, now I’ll just take a deep breath and relax, after all, it’s only their opinion and I can make of it what I want without taking everything to heart. I’ve learnt to be better at dealing with setbacks both in my rehabilitation and eating; learning from my mistakes and avoiding repeating them, there was a reason why I had fallen over. So use the downtime and build on that weakness and when eating out, think out the menu choices better and share dishes if needs be. When something unforeseen comes up to hold me back, don’t throw in the towel. Setbacks happen to everyone. Regroup and focus on meeting my goals again as soon as I can. Never forget the journey, rehabilitation is a process and not a single action. It’s OK to revisit your personal methods and goals, expand on them and adapt to them to changes elsewhere, in limiting my intake of saturated fat by eating less fried foods I have been able to keep my weight in check, the next step is to try cutting back on added sugars, too. Small changes can lead to healthy habits worth keeping.
The way I was able to conceptualize all this to myself was by thinking of myself as a failing company that desperately needed to be put back on track or remain stuck on the side-lines to be forgotten about forever. As an idea, this might sound fatuous but with my background in business it did provide a reference point for tackling the issue head-on and just like a failing business it was absolutely vital to be completely honest about the situation I found myself in; admit there is a problem and own it before attempting to resolve it. For all that I might be the chief stakeholder in this venture, it was important to concede control to my wife, who has the most encompassing overview of the project, controlling it myself would open the opportunity to go easy on myself and tell myself pretty lies about the progress I was making when she above anyone else has the impassioned objectivity to see this project through to the end. It’s important for the principal agent of change to be external, to ensure that change was unbiasedly monitored and always visible and who else could be better than to allow Miko, my wife, herself a Manager experienced in International Business, to assume in control of the crisis team and take charge of change management.
So having examined all the hurdles and both taking the time to learn what was needed to get me back on my feet, we were fully aware of the problems and solutions and did so without relying unnecessarily on jargon or technicalities. We both knew that accepting that the truth of my predicament was more important than any notions of morale or ego and so we set out about the task of incrementally making the changes that were required.
Even today, it makes sense to me to be going about this attempt to get me walking again with my wife. As the two people most directly affected by my inability to walk, we are both passionate about getting me back on my own two feet and nobody else could be more invested in the goal. If my quality of life has been diminished by losing the ability to walk, then so has my wife’s by being forced to be an unpaid home helper and look after me 365 days of the year, especially considering that we were a newly married couple approaching our first wedding anniversary when I got injured.
I understand the tremendous pressure I put her under each and every day, just by being here. I am not so ‘old fashioned’ as to expect to be cared for by my wife and I understand that well-meaning inquiries about my health from friends and relatives ignore her stresses as she struggles to cope with her job, caring for me and balancing in her personal needs. Under the best of circumstances, she faces disruptions in her usual work and social life, sleep habits, exercise routine, household management and financial situation. In addition to a loss of intimacy, she has been saddled with such unglamorous tasks as cleaning up accidents, servicing care equipment and fulfilling challenging dietary needs. It’s nothing more than a ‘roller coaster ride into hell’. In comparison, doing my utmost not to be changed as a person, to be the same loving and thoughtful person I was before I got injured is a walk in the park. Instead, I put my best foot forward and do all I can to remain unchanged by my injury, hiding the pain and doubt that inevitably accompanies it. But that doesn’t change the fact that ‘the man of the house’, this paralysed husband has become a child who must be cared for, taking from the very person I signed on to protect.
As a couple, I hope that we still complement each other well and both know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. Indeed, I hope we are the perfect counterpoints to one another, Miko is meticulous and pragmatic while I am more conceptual, creative and freewheeling. It would be easy for these contrasting qualities to cause friction, but we try to achieve working compatibility by accepting each other’s differences and collaborating.
With our goals clear, our motivation unwavering and by setting both broad and specific goals for the business at hand together, we always shared the same perspective. Our common goals helped us to stay on track and visualize our success. It also allowed us to learn more about ourselves along the journey and to deepen our relationship. Working closely together, as two very different and strong characters we obviously faced challenges and it was very important for us both to maintain perspective and stay grounded so that attempting such an unprecedented challenge did not detract from our personal lives. Fortunately, we are for the most part managing it with the highs outshining the lows and though I firmly believe that, as of today, our relationship has been strengthened. I also realize that we won’t be out of the woods until I can at least get around the house unaided.
Indeed the benefits of including a romantic partner in a shared challenge are well documented. Laboratory studies show that after jointly participating in any kind of challenge or activity, couples report feeling more satisfied with their relationships and more in love with their partner. Shared goals, even if I am the only person physically undergoing the rehabilitation program, the novelty of attempting such an unprecedented challenge should hopefully drive romantic attraction even in the absence of shared exertion to mimic the physiological arousal that mirrors that bond. Undoubtedly, her mere presence affects my performance, what greater motivation can there be than to show a loved one that I am, indeed, getting better and we should one day be able to put all the worry and hurt behind us. Through closely following her advice and instruction, this attuned nonverbal mimicry has effectively created a sense of emotional bonding and this connection strengthened our relationship by sharing and achieving our shared goals together.
As with any problem, sickness or injury, it can be very difficult to differentiate and separate the problems from the symptoms and begin to mistakenly treat the symptoms as if they were the root problems. I was fortunate to know the issue I needed to overcome from the beginning and even living with the symptoms couldn’t allow me to be distracted by them, by breaking down the act of standing up into its constituent parts alongside the muscles that facilitated those actions I had a clear roadmap that was signposted with the specific skeletal muscles that were waiting to be woken up.
What was most important along this multiphase journey was not to get side-tracked, to avoid becoming disheartened if and when things refused to go smoothly. To make sure that I never began to regress, and to both smoothly and effectively buy time when roadblocks were encountered. The final goal was for me to walk again, to get around the house unencumbered and not to win the Gold medal in the 100m sprint. By maintaining focus on that goal and keeping an effective line of progress towards that target, by ensuring that the required change was continuous and evident to my wife, who more than anyone else I was happy to trust with everything. All the while remembering that any attempt to produce a turnaround is a character job, not a strategy job. Turnaround is very stressful and you’ll need a burning desire to succeed. You also need the grace to accept failure and the complete understanding that any turnaround is an intervention and strive to avoid any futile attempts at individual heroism. Instead always, always give credit, express humility and thanks to everyone who is helping on the journey. While I might personify the change, the burden is borne by others who are doing all the hard work to put me in a position to overcome my injuries. The bulk of the hard, unpleasant work is being done by my wife and the team of helpers who visit the apartment daily.
As a concept, humility is often misunderstood and mistaken for low self-esteem and self-denigration. When actually to operate as a positive force for change, humility needs to maintain self-knowledge. Humility requires awareness of your personal limitations as a human being, valuing the welfare of others and forgetting themselves when needed. As a trait, humility has great value which studies have linked to success in academic performance, job performance and leadership excellence. With humble individuals having empirically better social relationships, being more forgiving, grateful and co-operative, they also tend to be more generous with both their time and money.
Indeed, the bulk of existing evidence points towards any criticism of the concept of humility as well as the widely held preconceptions that associate humility with low self-esteem and self-denigration being utterly incorrect. Humility can advance fortunes in the world, it is a distinguishing trait of CEOs of successful organizations. The connection between humility and generosity shows that it does result in people being more valuable members of society, with humble individuals seen as well-adjusted and kind. Given its appropriateness for us as limited and fallible human beings, and its value in developing a flourishing system of social welfare, humility is a trait worth cultivating.
The notion that if you want to achieve a goal the best thing is to write it down, might seem like a bit of a cliché, but it’s also an undeniable fact. Write down your goals clearly and vividly so that it would be possible to show them to others and immediately have they understand exactly where you are heading. Such clarity in defining goals underlies a deep and cogent understanding of just what is going to be needed to be done to achieve those aims and makes those people, who have done so significantly more likely to achieve them than others who haven’t. So let me do it again here and state for the world to see, there is no doubt in my mind that I am going to walk again. It’s just a matter of time and there are no questions in my mind and no doubts either because one day soon I will be able to do it.
But really, what difference does it make? Isn’t it all just a waste of time to commit something to paper when the idea was already stored in my brain? The answer to those questions is ‘no’ and ‘no’. ‘No’ because it doesn’t take a genius to understand that things are easier to remember when they can be seen and ‘no’ because taking the time to write these goals down greatly improves their chances of being remembered for longer.
In writing things down you go through 2 processes, externalizing and analysis. By storing information outside of ourselves onto a medium that can be easily accessed and reviewed at any time, like a piece of paper stuck on the side of the fridge that provides a visual reminder to be seen every day. But also, the act of writing something down and committing it to paper is deeper than that, it’s part of the process of analysis with decisions happening in the hippocampus area of the brain that determines just what does and doesn’t get stored in long-term memory. Basically, by going to the trouble of writing things down we give that information a far greater chance of being remembered.
It is scientifically demonstrable that people have a better ability to recall things that they’ve created for themselves as opposed to simply, only read. In writing things down we are effectively doubling this memory benefit, by reprocessing and regenerating that self-created information and by taking greater ownership of the same information. By scaling, ordering and choosing the words to best describe them that increased amount of cognitive processing really sears the ideas into your brain.
Numerous studies can be cited to show what I hope we should already instinctively know, writing things down makes them easier to remember and that extends to the specifics and not just a general overview. Writing things down doesn’t only help us to remember, it allows us to focus better and more efficiently on the truly important stuff and what could be more important than personal goals. So, let me underline them here, I am step-by-step building up my core strength and my muscle strength, knocking down all the barriers that lie before me to get back to walking. It’s not going to be easy and there will be failure along the way but I am not going to let that dissuade me and nor am I going to make an already difficult task more difficult by allowing my weight to balloon and become even more unhealthy. If anything, I will do my utmost given the limited exercise that I can do to get in better shape than back when I was going to the gym at least twice a week.
It is also important not to get controlled by language, taking it all too literally and end up mistaking the menu for the meal. After all, a collection of carefully chosen words on the menu can’t ever accurately represent the skills of the chef, moreover a meal might be food but not all food is a meal; an apple is food but you can’t call it a meal. Over time words often change their meaning and come to be used for something completely different to what they had initially started out being used for; in the English language nice used to mean simple or foolish, quite different to the overly used compliment it is today, alternatively silly has gone in the opposite direction, once meaning worthy or blessed from which it was tweaked to refer to meaning the weak and vulnerable. So who knows what paralysed will come to mean in the future and maybe it’s my opportunity to define it!
The current definition of paralysis that’s used to refer to the inability to move, sense or feel a limb or limbs is of course true. It’s also only superficially accurate because it’s also far more nuanced than that and ultimately depends on the extent to which people are immobilized over time as physical therapy is undertaken and changes in health, physical condition and hopefully, good fortune alter the way the body is able to respond to the physical damage it had suffered. Paralysis or disability don’t mean inability, I feel in no way diminished, lesser or inferior to the next person regardless of my inability to walk or otherwise and for all that I might need help, I am not helpless!