Two things recently happened on the same day that I can’t stop thinking about.

The first was an article in the New York Times, where psychologist Angela Duckworth, in her editorial, “I Study Successful People; They Have One Habit in Common,” wrote about what she’s found to be one of the most reliable markers of a thriving life: not talent, not grit, alone, but the willingness to ask for help. She tells the story of a day in rough ocean water with her 86-year-old mother—a day that could have ended very differently. What saved them both, she writes, wasn’t fighting the current on their own. It was calling out. She goes on to describe how this holds true far beyond emergencies: the people who build the fullest lives are usually the ones who let themselves lean on the “wise elders” around them—mentors, colleagues, friends—instead of quietly trying to carry everything alone.

The second thing was a gathering of big hearts in a church fellowship room. Jon and I met at Church of the Holy Nativity for orientation with the volunteer team who were helping us launch Good Memories Hinsdale, our newest dementia choir the following week. We introduced our new conductor, Jennifer Budziak, as well as Melinda Almeroth, our Choir Coordinator. We described the many volunteer roles that are essential for the success of the choir; room set-up, singer check-in, folder inventory control, being a singing buddy for someone with dementia, and of course, coordination of snacks! But not surprisingly, before we ever got to logistics, we spent real time on the spirit of these choirs—because the logistics only work if the spirit is right. We talked about how hard the road of dementia is, for the person living it and for the people who love them. We talked about how suffering, strangely, has a way of connecting us rather than isolating us, when we let it. And we talked about something that every one of you who has ever sung in one of these choirs already knows in your bones: that the people who come to give something in that room almost always leave having received far more than they brought.

I couldn’t stop turning that over, next to Duckworth’s article, for the rest of the day.

Because here’s what struck me: asking for help and offering help are not two different skills. They’re the same act, seen from two different chairs. Both require humility. Both require trusting that you are not, in fact, meant to carry this—whatever “this” is—by yourself. And both are a kind of grace, whether or not you’d use that word for it.

Think about what happens in one of our choir rooms. A care partner walks in exhausted, maybe grieving a version of their spouse or parent that’s slipping away a little more each week. They didn’t come because they had the energy to spare. They came because they needed something—connection, relief, an hour where they weren’t the only one holding it all. That’s an act of asking, even if no one says the words out loud.

And the volunteer sitting two chairs down, who showed up to give their Tuesday (or Wednesday or Saturday) morning? They’re about to discover what every one of you already knows: that standing next to someone in the hardest season of their life, and singing with them anyway, does something to you. It doesn’t just help the person you came to serve. It helps you. You will leave that room having received a gift you didn’t know you needed.

That’s the paradox at the center of everything we do. We call it “helping.” But nobody in that circle—the circle of connection and belonging—is only helping and nobody is only being helped. Everyone is doing both, at the same time, whether they’re the one who can no longer remember their grandchildren’s names or the one who just learned how to find middle C.

I marvel sometimes at the generosity of the volunteers in our organization—not just those who show up every week in my dementia choirs, but the volunteers all across Sounds Good Choir—marvel at how they show up, give their time and talent, and do so with joy and enthusiasm. And I’ve often asked myself why they offer such charity, over and over. But I think I’ve got it wrong when I look at it that way. Charity implies a direction—someone who has, giving to someone who lacks. What I actually see, week after week, is much closer to what Duckworth was pointing to: a room full of people who’ve figured out, some of them for the first time in their lives, that reaching out and letting yourself be reached are not signs of weakness. They’re how anyone gets through the hard and beautiful parts of being human.

So, to the nearly 625 of you singing in our choirs, and especially to the new volunteers who recently joined us: thank you for being willing to ask and thank you for being willing to offer. I don’t think you can really do one without the other. Every time you show up, you’re both the person calling out from the water and the one who hears it and swims over. That’s not a small thing. That might be the whole thing.

See you in the circle.