For me, the most difficult part of running for office, by far, is asking people for help.
Part of it is a function of my personality. When I want to try something new, or attempt to learn a new skill, I tend to do it myself, educating myself from my own trial and error. That’s how I learned to fix everything in a 100-year-old house, by messing things up royally the first time as I taught myself how to to it. The good news about that method is that I’m an exceedingly quick learner. Rarely do I make the same mistake twice. The bad news is that with the number of jobs and skills I’ve tackled in my life, I’m still making new errors when most people have settled into the groove of well-established careers that bear few new surprises or opportunities for big mistakes.
But, hey, that’s obviously not me. My brain is going a million miles a minute all the time. I like to always learn new things and tackle new challenges. Running for judge is only the latest in a long line of personal challenges I’ve undertaken. And like the rest, I’ve made some mistakes. Whether they will ultimately hurt my chances remains to be seen. But I know one thing, whether it’s for myself in the general election come November, or for someone else in the future, I’ll make a heck of an election consultant!
But back to the point! When you’re hard-wired to do things for yourself, it’s difficult to ask people for assistance, even if they are freely offering to give it. I don’t know if it’s a product of Catholic guilt or what, but I don’t want to impose on anyone. And asking for help always feels like an imposition to me. When I was walking for signatures in October, it was incredibly difficult for me to approach people and ask for something as simple as a signature. The only way I could handle it was to begin the encounters with “I’m not selling anything,” a disclaimer that immediately made them–and me–feel like our meeting was NOT going to wind up classified as an imposition. And now, with campaign work that needs to be done, the primary reaon I’m getting so much help is because people around me are taking charge of things they know I’ll try to do myself, even when the laws of time and physics make it apparent I won’t have enough time to get them accomplished.
So thank you to my campaign staffers who volunteer their time and effort to help me out, and for some reason, act like it’s not an imposition. I can’t help feeling that it is, though. I get a little Deputy Fife voice in my head that wants to tell them, “All right, all right, break it up!! Go about your lives, citizens!” But instead, I just keep shaking my head at their generosity and saying “Thank you.”
To contact Tim, write him at timplacher@yahoo.com
For more info about Tim’s campaign, visit www.timforjudge.com
