Independence, a Blessing and a Curse

     It's interesting how life is constantly trying to teach you things if you let it, especially about yourself. In recent years I've discovered a lot about my inner workings. The most recent thing I've realized is that I am way too prone to independence. 

    To clarify, I do think some level of independence is a good thing, but it's also important to know when to ask for help or when to collaborate, and that is, apparently, a skill I do not possess. Some of that might be due to the fact that I was the second of seven children, so independence was quite a useful life skill growing up.  That being said, I do think most of my issue stems from the fact that in most situations asking for help literally does not occur to me. My instinct is to research and fixate until I figure it out or give up for an extended period of time, and while I do ask questions, I rarely explicitly ask for help. Also, on the odd occasions when it does occur to me to ask, I've usually managed to frustrate myself with all my attempts to the point that I'm not really in the frame of mind to accept help graciously, so it's not an enjoyable or particularly fruitful experience for those of us involved. 

    I realized this is also an issue I have with my writing efforts: I haven't gotten involved in a writing community. I do have a few trusted friends and family, whom occasionally peruse my writing, but it's not consistent. It occurred to me a couple months ago though, that I really need to change that. And now I dread taking that step like an adolescent who's about to start at a new middle school.