I’m tired. Nope. I’m more than tired. I am FUCKING EXHAUSTED. Anxiety, stress, work, family, volunteering, it is all taking a toll, but it’s more than that. The weight on my shoulders feels disproportionately heavy and I think I’ve figured out why:  I’m a helper.

In school, I not only joined every extra-curricular activity I could; I happily led most of them. In department meetings, I have to sit on my hands to keep myself from volunteering for every committee. I coach my kids’ teams, plan their class parties, and volunteer at events. Someone asks for help, and I say yes. It’s just who I am. It makes me happy and gives me purpose. Helping people is simply the right thing to do.

Of course, my impulse to help is not always healthy. I overcommit, burnout, and experience severe anxiety. Life is about balance, the experts say, and I’m learning to prioritize and say no, but I keep running into a small problem: If I don’t do it, there doesn’t seem to be anyone else to step in.

One of the many books my mother read to me in my childhood that is seared in my brain is The Little Red Hen. In the story, the hen completes a series of tasks and for each new task, she asks for help. Each time she asks, the other characters reply the same way, “Not I,” so the little red hen completes each task herself. She eventually ends up with some freshly baked bread, which of course, all of the other characters want to eat. In the story, the hen denies her lazy friends the bread and eats it herself, but this is where it diverges from my experience.  Instead, everyone benefits or suffers together, no matter who does the actual work.

Some may see this story as a capitalist argument, and it very well might be, but when I think about The Little Red Hen, I’m reminded of the threat to the common good. 

As director of a youth soccer program, I am constantly begging for help. We are a non-profit organization, so we depend upon volunteers for everything: coaches, field work, and fundraising. I even struggle to find people to help with the paid referee positions. The soccer program seems to be a microcosm of every other community endeavor: a handful of helpers struggle to create an enjoyable experience for everyone else.

If we widen the lens a bit more, we can see this playing out in every crisis affecting humanity: climate change, poverty, pollution, violence, disease. A small handful of people are fighting like hell while everyone else is either a part of the problem or just oblivious.

And so this brings me to the current state of the pandemic in the United States. At first, I was hopeful. I naively assumed that the majority of people would have a similar default setting as mine: Who wouldn’t want to help their community during a global health crisis? Of course people would do anything they could to protect the vulnerable. Small sacrifices were nothing compared to the immeasurable grief and suffering of tens of thousands of people. The pandemic would renew our sense of community and dedication to the common good.

Yeah No.

What we’ve witnessed over the past year and a half is a nationwide reenactment of The Little Red Hen:

Please stay home and social distance: “Not I,” said 40% of Americans. 

If you’re going to go out, please wear a mask to protect yourself and others: “Not I,” said that same 40%.

Look- now we have a vaccine to put an end to the pandemic and give relief to health care workers and other essential workers. Let’s get vaccinated to not only protect ourselves, but to protect the vulnerable: “Not I,” sang a chorus of way too many. 

Ok, we all want our kids to go back to school, so let’s get kids vaccinated and protect those who can’t by mandating masks: “Not I,” they refused again and again and again.

Not only are many refusing to contribute; some of them are deliberately sabotaging the efforts of those who are trying desperately to help in every way they can by spreading misinformation, protesting at school board meetings, and actively disregarding even the simplest of public health measures.

And here is where I stop and silently scream into the abyss. I’m so exhausted. I’m so exasperated… I AM SO FURIOUS. But most of all, I feel so terribly dejected to know my children are living in a world with so few helpers.

Every time a national or global crisis occurs, social media is flooded with Mister Rogers memes that quote, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.”

When I’m feeling this mix of exhaustion and rage and despair, I find myself needing this advice. I take comfort in my group of helpers. My friends, colleagues, family, and neighbors who always seem to be there, sharing the load. They are the very best of humanity and my gratitude for them alleviates the negativity, at least for a while.

The truth is, though, that we have a shortage of helpers. This small group is buckling under the weight of responsibilities we have taken upon ourselves. Our natural inclination to do the right thing and take care of others have left us drained and we are dangerously close to saying, “Fuck it. I am done.”  I’m terrified of what will happen as helpers burn out and numbers dwindle. 

The Little Red Hen story has one important omission that I think could be the answer to this dilemma: the potential helpers waiting on the sidelines. The truth is that while a small group is ALWAYS helping and another small group is NEVER helping and often making things worse, there’s a much larger group that holds endless possibilities.

While some of us immediately spring into action at the first sign of need, others just need a bit more nudging and direction.  I’m convinced we can still find a way out of this pandemic and every other challenge by providing opportunities for others to contribute and convincing the hesitant that their contributions will make the difference. I have to believe that most people want to do what’s right and want to help others; perhaps they’re just not quite sure how.

This is where the practice of “voluntelling” or delegation could be helpful. Many of us who rush to help often forget to ask for help ourselves. The fact is that sometimes people don’t know help is needed if no one asks. People want to help, but aren’t sure exactly what needs to be done. Providing specific opportunities and reasons why that work is valuable is all some people need to get involved. 

Just this week, a parent emailed to ask if we had an equipment donation program because she had some gently used cleats to share. I explained to her that we’ve always wanted a program like this, but didn’t have anyone to lead it. “Would you be interested?” I asked hopefully as I usually do. To my delight (and admitted surprise), her answer was yes!

It turns out that after what seems like a thousand “Not I’s,” sometimes you get an “I will.”

We can also find some hope in the quiet, “Not Yet,” crowd. These folks could be our ticket out of this deadly pandemic. They are not the angry, belligerent anti-mask, anti-vax, conspiracy theory driven saboteurs, but instead sitting on the fence, wanting to help, but not sure how. They are the quiet, brilliant introvert who is brimming with valuable contributions for the group project if only the sometimes overbearing group leader would take the time to ask.

Full disclosure: Sometimes I let my anger, frustration, and exhaustion take over. I want to channel this McSweeney’s article, shake people and scream, “ OH MY FUCKING GOD, GET THE FUCKING VACCINE ALREADY, YOU FUCKING FUCKS.” Now of course my logical (and I hope) empathetic brain that understands this is not the answer. However, sometimes it takes a voice from an unexpected place to provide new inspiration for not giving in to utter exasperation.

Out of the blue, an old high school friend reached out to me, asking me to help him make a decision about taking the vaccine. He explained that he was on the fence and shared his concerns and hesitations. I was taken aback by both his honesty and vulnerability. He truly wanted to do the right thing and find credible information to help him make what was a difficult decision for him. This was a lesson in humility–I had allowed my frustration to lose sight of so many good, decent, and thoughtful people in my world. This friend trusted me to help him and valued my perspective and judgment. I was shook.

So I sat down and wrote to my old friend. I wrote, not as an expert in science or medicine, but as an educator, mother, and friend. I shared the credible information I found and my personal reasons for vaccinating myself and my children: we want to protect our friends, family, and community. 

The next day, my friend messaged that he had received his first shot and I cried with joy.

The truth is that this world is not made up of diametrical groups of people that can be separated into distinct buckets. Yes, some of us are inclined to help much more than others. And yes, some of us are just plain A-Holes. However, the vast majority of us, I hope, I really hope, are willing to lend a hand when presented with the opportunity and tools to do so.

I’m exhausted, but I feel guilty that I don’t help enough. I could do more. I should do more. So many of us exist in this space–we need to be able to extend grace to ourselves and each other, understanding that most of us are doing the best we can with what we’ve got.

And so I suppose that leads us to a mashup of The Little Red Hen and Mister Rogers. The little red hen asks for help, but maybe she’s not asking the right characters. Mister Rogers implores us to look for the helpers, but we also cannot forget to look for ways to be helpers ourselves. While we can’t depend on others to do all of the work, we can find ways to contribute ourselves AND not be afraid to ask others to share the load. Most importantly, we cannot give up on each other or lose sight of how intricately our lives are intertwined, whether we want them to be or not. 

I’m learning these lessons in real time and doing my best to teach them to my children as we navigate this mess of a world. We have crisis upon crisis to face: climate change, violence, racism, sexism, extremist threats to our democracy, and of course another surge in the pandemic, this time with hospitalizations of children soaring and hospitals filling up with mostly unvaccinated patients. 

It will be impossible to get through these challenges without more volunteers. We, of course, need people to do the right thing: wear masks, get vaccinated, avoid behaving irresponsibly. But that is just not enough. We also need to implore others to do the same, encourage those on the sidelines to join the effort and make the valuable contributions they can offer. Speak up out of love and compassion. 

Recently, I came across another Mister Rogers quote that may be even more fitting to these tumultuous times, “We live in a world in which we need to share responsibility. It’s easy to say, ‘It’s not my child, not my community, not my world, not my problem.’ Then there are those who see the need and respond. I consider those people my heroes.”

What an opportunity to be heroes and show our children the power of kindness, empathy, compassion, and civic duty. What an opportunity to push back against the havoc wreaked by ignorance and apathy. So many of us lament all of the ugliness in the world, but I just cannot help wondering what might happen if more of us joined forces, combining our superpowers of goodwill. We will still have crisis after crisis of our own making, but we might at least have a fighting chance with a few (ok A LOT) more helpers. This little red hen is asking, please, because I. Am. Tired.