Thanks but no thanks
Many years ago I had a friend who wanted to help me when my second child had just been born. I did have my hands full with two children under two, but I kept telling her, “Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t need any help.” I honestly thought I was doing her a favor by not making any demands on her. Finally, in exasperation, she said, “Please let me help you. It would be doing me a favor!” I was stunned. I hadn’t realized how my refusal to accept her help had left her feeling helpless and inadequate.
Why is it so difficult for us to accept help from others? Maybe it’s because we don’t like admitting to our inadequacies. So we end up using “thank you” for actions that are routine and don’t necessarily fill us with waves of gratitude. For example, when the busboy refills your water glass, isn’t that his job? Yet I know that I find myself saying thank you to him. What is going on there? Think about it – not saying “thank you” makes a silent but effective statement of inequality, such as “Your job is to serve me and my job is to accept that service.” By not thanking the busboy, I affirm my superior position over him. When I do say the words of thanks, I am sending a different message altogether – “Your service is generous and unexpected; we are not on different social levels, but social equals who serve each other out of choice, not obligation.” Of course, when we leave a tip for the waiter that we expect is shared with the busboy, we return the busboy’s gift with one of equal value (at least from our perspective!). The tip, construed as an option rather than an obligation, denies the reality that the tip is indeed payment for services rendered, and not a gift. The unacknowledged result of the “thank you” to the busboy is that inequality is denied and obligation masquerades as gift.
I find this interesting for two reasons. The first is how it reveals the American obsession with equality. Even when inequality is built into the relationship, we conceal or deny it beneath a veneer of social niceties. The other reason is how it messes with a genuine experience of gratitude. By perpetrating the double illusion that (1) inequality is absent from a relationship of obvious inequality, and (2) that an obligation is a gift, we may begin to lose sight of what it feels like to be on the receiving end of genuine generosity. Equality is indeed a wonderful thing, but inequality has its virtues as well. The experience of gratitude contains within it an assumption of inequality. In other words, gratitude is a response to being given something undeserved and generous by someone who, by their gift, disrupts the equilibrium of your relationship. In the flood of gratitude, words often fail us. We might say, “thank you isn’t enough” or “how can I ever repay you?” The point of a truly generous gift is that there is no expectation of repayment, no possibility of being able to return in kind something of equal value, like a tip for a filled water glass. No “thank you” can effectively conceal just how unequal your relationship has become or just how marvelous that feels.
Getting comfortable with feeling inferior, inadequate or just plain needy may make it possible to recognize authentic gifts from family, friends and strangers and thus to experience the joy of gratitude. It may help our relationship with God as well – or the Divine or Spirit – however you conceive of that which is bigger than we are. You see, if we deny that there is something bigger than we are with which we can never achieve equality, the possibility for Divine generosity is reasoned away. We end up treating God like a busboy, offering the Divine a perfunctory “thank you” for services rendered, feigning equality where none is possible and shutting down the possibility of true gift. What I’m suggesting is that sometimes a “thank you”, nice as it is, can function more like a “thanks, but no thanks” allowing us to preempt gifts with an illusion of self-sufficiency, which is the ultimate position of superiority.
It is still hard for me to this day, almost 30 years after my children were born, to admit when I need help. When I can do it, when I allow someone else to see my need and respond to it with a gift for which no “thank you” will ever be enough, my feeling of inadequacy melts into waves of gratitude and joy. I know it’s counter-intuitive – Americans are supposed to be all about equality and self-sufficiency. But if you try admitting your inadequacy, gift and gratitude just might take you by surprise.