When someone offers to help you, try very hard not to get mad about it.
It sounds like wild advice in a vacuum, but some people get absolutely steamed when offered help. Something about an offer of assistance can come across as an insult – a sneering accusation that you aren’t good enough to handle whatever’s in front of you. A status-smashing attack on our very competency! The very insinuation that you aren’t superhuman can feel like you’re being treated like slime.
Our brains are status-evaluation machines that run 24/7/365, so it’s natural that this happens. But here’s the thing – that machine is badly tuned. There absolutely are some spheres of your life where status matters and is actually being observed and evaluated. But it’s definitely not always. If you have five grocery bags in your hands and someone offers to hold the door for you or even – gasp – carry one of the bags, that person definitely isn’t playing a status game with you.
Don’t be too good for free resources. If someone wants to give their own juice to you, then let your life get easier. Don’t be your own worst enemy just because your brain treats status as a live wire. It’s not.
The Opportunity Machine 