Regretting I ever did this

I have read and re-read the forums that are posted all over the internet and I am no closer to figuring out exactly what is going on. One of my many problems in that I don’t know where my wp-content directory of anything is. I use liquidweb as my host and I downloaded smartftp the other day in order to install a theme that I wanted. I would really like to know in a language I can understand how do I find the place to put in plugins,buttons or badges) and also flickr. This is so frustrating to me and I am on the verge of forgetting this entire website/blog thing. Any help will be greatly appreciated.