The dryer cord was behind the dryer. Of course it was.
My youngest daughter, Jordan, was moving into her first home, and I flew across the country to help. I didn’t realize installing her washer and dryer would be part of the trip. But her laundry was stacking up, and it needed to be done.
The machines were in place. The last job was fishing the cord up from the gap between the dryer and the wall. Jordan offered to grab it.
By then I was already mid-flight. Stomach flat across the top of the machine, both arms down the back, bare feet braced against the door frame behind me for leverage. She took a picture.
(It's a good picture. The neon stripes on my sweatpants are doing a lot of work.)
Jordan is young. She could have reached that cord from a more dignified angle.
Where the habit came from
Jordan has told me she remembers watching me do this kind of thing on my own when she was growing up. She tells her friends I can put IKEA furniture together solo. She says it with some pride, and I’ll take it.
She’s right about the history. I was a single mom. There was nobody else to hold the other end of the bookshelf, so I learned to hold both ends. I learned hardware and hookups and those wordless instruction booklets, because the alternative was going without. That self-reliance got us through. I’m proud of it too.
But I have a choice now. I have a husband. Friends. Co-workers. A grown daughter standing two feet away, offering. And here I am in my fifties, draped over a dryer.
It didn't occur to me
The honest part is that I never decided against asking. It didn’t occur to me. I just wanted the chore done so I could move on, and the fastest path to done ran straight through my own two arms.
That’s what a habit built under pressure does. It skips the step where you look around. When you spend years as the only person available, your body learns to go before your head checks who else is in the room. The conditions changed a long time ago. The reflex kept running.
And I wrote the chapter. Chapter 3 of my book is called Let Them Drive. It’s about the urge to hand people the answer instead of letting them build their own knowledge, and how that urge feels like generosity while it keeps them dependent on you. Jordan offered to drive, but I had the wheel before the offer registered.
The same reflex at work
We have new leadership where I work. I’ve caught myself, more than once, wanting to delegate things to them when what the moment called for was working it through with them. And when I delegate, it’s specific. Do this, in this way.
On the surface that looks like the opposite of the dryer. I’m giving the work away instead of keeping it. Underneath, it’s the same move. When I hand over the task along with exactly how to do it, the thinking stays with me. Someone else’s arms go behind the dryer, and I’m still the one deciding where they reach.
That’s the answer reflex again. Handing people the method feels like clarity. It also means they never get to show me how they’d approach it, so I never find out.
Doing it myself and handing it off with instructions are both ways to finish. Collaborating means staying in it with someone, which takes longer and involves more talking, and when I’m in a hurry to be done, that’s the option my brain skips.
With new leaders, that’s the option that matters most. We’re still learning how each other thinks, and that learning happens in the shared work, in the back-and-forth where you find out how the other person sees a problem. So I keep having to check my own compass. Am I handing this over because it belongs to them, or because I want it off my desk?
The conditions changed a long time ago. The reflex kept running.
Finishing isn't the only way to be done
The critical distinction here is between finishing and sharing. Finishing gets the task off your plate, and you can do it alone or by passing it away. Sharing keeps you in the work alongside someone. It’s slower. It’s the only version where anyone learns anything about anyone else.
The people around you notice which one you pick. Jordan grew up watching me do it alone, and she learned I could. I’d like her to also get to experience my joy watching her do it.
Your team is watching the same way. Every time you reach past them, they learn you’ve got it covered. Eventually they stop offering.
Now for the ask.
If this one sounded familiar, the book goes further into it. Read the Terrain is up for Kindle pre-order now, ahead of the November 2 launch.
And this week’s question:
What’s one thing you’re still doing alone because you once had to?
Hit reply and tell me. I read every one.
Laura