Sometimes you and I have to stoke up enough nerve to ask someone for a favor. We find it tough to ask for something -- for anything. I'm not thinking about asking someone for a large sum of money either. It can be as simple as asking for a ride when our own car is temporarily out of commission, or asking someone at a dinner table to pass us the potatoes. We are inclined to hesitate when it comes to asking favors of others, even small ones.

This is probably the case for at least two reasons. First, we tend to be fiercely independent. We want to do things on our own. In the second place, we fear that others might view us as being inadequate if we have to ask for something, even when the predicament is quite understandable. Along with these two reasons there is a general, vague feeling that we…