"If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together."
This morning I just launched my website...
The finished product of hours of tweaking, modifying and thinking 'yes! it's done', only to look at it again 10 minutes later to find something not quite right.. the creative process apparently.
Apart from an obvious rule of life where you have to put in time to your craft or product, as part of this process I reached out to friends and whānau (family) and was blessed enough to have some reach out to me and offer their support. Some were a lot more clued up in some areas than I was, like branding or design, while some shared their different perspective and opened up my eyes to looking at the site from a totally different angle.
As we grow up we learn to do things for ourselves and try to figure things out before asking for help. Whenever it became embarrassing or weak to ask for help, I'm not too sure... You don't know what you don't know! Even sometimes you do know what you don't know and that's OK - not to be confused with ignorance though; simple ignorance is when you genuinely don't know > wilful ignorance when you refuse to know. Anyway, there's a beauty in not knowing some things because more often that not, there may be people in your life who do know something and are happy to contribute their knowledge to the cause.
People want you to do well and succeed - there are some people who want it for you, but not too much that you succeed more than them and those people are ones you don't want to spend too much time with but I'll leave that topic to another post. Basically, there's enough room for everyone to find something they're passionate about and pursue it. If you believe in what you’re doing, the resources in their various shapes and forms will come.
I’m not afraid to admit that I’m still in Kohanga Reo (for this context; kindergarten) when it comes to some things and I've become aware that the topics I can be a little too proud to accept help for are things I think I should know. Based on what? Based on my ego and my made up opinion of where I should be, what I should be doing etc. It's a process I've been working on for some time and hey, slow progress is still progress.
A few months ago I was at a workshop and a special person to me said to the group,
"if you want to go fast, you go alone. If you want to go far, you go together."
It's stuck with me ever since. We need to get out of thinking; we need to do everything by ourselves, that being independent means you can't accept help.. Yeah sure there are paths we walk alone, there are processes we go through ourselves. Those processes ultimately contribute towards the whole. Those processes we go through alone influence how well we can give to the collective - whatever the collective may look like for you; community group, whanau at home, company, school, you get the idea.
Who I am and where I am is largely shaped by the people I have in my life, and the people who have come before me. I acknowledge that I have strengths and I have things I am still learning about. At the end of the day, you can get over yourself to ask for and accept help from someone who has more experience or knowledge than you, who can help you increase your knowledge or... be proud and remain not knowing. Mmm, good luck with that.
Nāku noa, Hana.