HEALTHY ATTITUDES (SELFISH REQUESTS vs FRIENDSHIP)

I'm familiar with a local writer asking Twitter cohorts to be part of a "Launch Team," i.e. "'Let's be friends' and you help sell my book."  The pitch went out to everyone following the saga of a young cancer survivor (who now calls herself a 'cancer alumnus'), of whom there are many who live quietly in gratitude and service.  You're so fill-in-the-blank (kind, helpful, special, know me, love me, follow me, have prayed for me, have your own following, are influential, etc.) that you'll help me sell my book.  After all, many friends have been asking what I need.  Well, I don't need a casserole or a ride to the doctor anymore.  I need a best-seller. I've written about my journey.  But I need to get it on the shelves.  You can help me do that. 

This made me think--not about Marketing 101, but about friendship.  

Two Girls in Front of Birch Trees, Paula Modersohn-Becker, 1905

All best-selling authors, I daresay, have private lives with friends who love them for themselves and vice versa.  The friends are there for them rain or shine but are not part of their marketing endeavors.  They don't become an unpaid salesforce.  

Soliciting help from friends is healthy.  But doesn't it depend on what we are soliciting help for?  For the school fund-raiser?  Or for our personal gain?  To help us through a rough patch? Or so that we can become a commercial success?  After-all, one of the hallmarks of a being a true friend to someone is that we do for each other but do not use each other.  You know the admonition:  Love people but use things.  Lebanese writer, poet and visual artist Khalil Gibran (1883-1931) says it beautifully:

Friendship is always a sweet responsibility,

Never an opportunity. 

Gibran's quote made me ponder how graciously accepting an unsolicited offer from a friend is different from what we call a "Selfish Request."  You know, imposing on the generosity of others by asking for favors either blatantly or through manipulation. Sometimes this is done ingenuously:  "Selfish Request coming up . . . ."  

I have seen requests so labeled from this particular writer.  Cajolingly appealing.  "I need a quiet place to write. [And I had cancer.] Your beach house?"  Followed by the same request to another colleague with a beach house.  And then another?  Leaving dirty towels behind her.  Selfish requests. 

None of these thoughts has to do with the merits of this surviver's book.  We all have times when connecting with others helps. We remember that we are not alone.  Whenever we must learn to live with sadness as a companion to our happiness, our friends help us.

So yes, we should do something when bad things happen.  Write if that's our talent.  Set up a foundation if we have money.  Do research if we are of that bent.  Create a memorial.  Become an activist.  Crusade--that's how MADD was founded (Mothers Against Drunk Driving).  And yes, we should ask for help from others--help to process a loss, to recover from a loss, to make it day to day through a loss, to fight injustices, to right wrongs, to contribute to a cause.  So many ways to help others.  

Something that is not a "selfish request" in any way.  Something that is not commercial or narcissistic.  Really, something that does not earn us money or help us climb the ladder of success.  Now that sounds healthy, doesn't it?