Blurred Boundaries
By: Anurag Tiwari
Tags: Self Care, Boundaries, Setting Boundaries, Saying No, Self-awareness

Blurred Boundaries

Are you the “Yes-person”? In my words, this is the kind of person who says a resounding “Yes!” to everything that comes their way and doesn’t consider the effect that it has on his personal time, and commitments.

Photo by Lance Asper on Unsplash

“Will you be able to help me out with this quiz?” “I am not sure, but I’ll try to squeeze some time out of my schedule.” “Come on, it’s just a matter of an hour. I know you can do that for me. I’ll see you later.” “Well, yeah.. but…”

And the phone beeps, leaving you to figure out how and where are you going to squeeze out that one hour from your overly packed schedule to help this friend out. Lately, I have been debating with myself over my actions where I was the “Yes-person” to everything that came my way.

Here’s what happened when I continuously said Yes to everything that people asked me for.

The expectations rose gigantically. I was supposed to be there for them to help them out, or be there for them for the tiniest of things, some as simple as validating whether they had done something correctly.

As a result, it’s clear that I was setting myself up for being taken for granted. It’s partially their fault for expecting so much from me, but the majority of the blame lies in the fact that I didn’t have the courage to deny them.

My boundaries with the people around me were quite literally non-existent and blurred beyond recognition.

Why saying “No” is a way to protect yourself

Now consider the same conversation, changing the last lines as:

“No, I won’t be able to help you out as I am packed myself. I hope you understand my situation and can figure out something yourself.” “But it’s just one hour! Nothing would happen in an hour. You would probably waste it watching some random show or reading a book! You can help me at least, that’s the least you could do!”

Well, I had a lot of responses to that but all of them occurred to me after the moment had passed. Why do the best arguments pop up in your head when the conflict has already passed?

I realized that by not saying No, here’s what I was saying instead,

“Oh for sure, I’ll help you. It’s because my work and time don’t matter to me and can take second priority right now, because everything on my mind would be focused on your well-being, and how to get your things done. My work can always take a back-seat and well it’s not important to me, so yes I will always be there for doing your work to please you.”

What a bunch of blatant lies and crap. Don’t you see how ridiculous does that sounds? It’s exactly what I was communicating by always saying yes to everything that came my way. People didn’t understand that I tried to squeeze time out for them because they were close and important to me, but that certainly didn’t mean that I was telling them that everything I wanted to do revolved around them.

What happened when I said No?

People were outraged. They demanded a lengthy explanation and a detailed breakdown of my time to show them that what I was doing instead was better than doing their work.

I had brought this upon myself because clearly, I had not stopped them from violating my boundary earlier. I had allowed them to trample, cross the lines and term my work as “not-so-important” and demand me for doing theirs instead. But what was done was done. There was no going back and I wanted to make them understand that my work was important and that I truly didn’t have time to devote to help them out.

What I instead got was a list of fruitless activities that I did and “wasted” my time earlier as a result of which I didn’t have time right now to do their work.

Stop Teaching Me How To Spend My Time

And here’s where I felt they went too far. You are my friend and I respect that, but you are nobody in the world to tell me how should I spend my time.

Writing seems useless to you, but it’s my hobby and so I will nurture it with the time I have. Watching movies seems like a critical waste of time to you, but it’s the one time for me when I am taking a break, appreciating cinema, and enjoying myself. Going for a walk, hanging out with friends, doing things out of work seems like a colossal waste of time to you, but it’s these things that don’t make me lose my sanity.

Think about how sometimes you don’t want to read some messages but just want to scroll through your feed. And if by chance, someone sees you were online but didn’t reply to their texts, they try to guilt-trip you. They make you feel as if you are obliged to reply to them as soon as you get time when you certainly are not in the right frame of mind for a conversation. This is where your personal boundaries are violated because you don’t stand up for yourself.

So, for once and for all, you don’t owe any explanation to anybody over how you spend your time, and what you should be doing instead. Don’t let people preach to you or make you feel guilty for the things you did, just because you could have done their work in the meantime instead.

If you don’t give importance to the things that matter to you, clearly nobody will and they will keep on violating this boundary and teaching you how to spend your time fruitfully.

When should you say No?

Having a boundary is important. It’s the one thing that will not make you feel worthless and drained out at the end of the day after selflessly doing everything for others and expecting nothing in return.

Realistically, it’s difficult not to have expectations from the people close to you. You want them to do certain things for you. But expecting from them and understanding that your expectations don’t govern their actions is one thing, but demanding them to act according to your whims and fancies is completely selfish.

The only way you are going to save yourself from all the guilt of not giving enough importance to your work, or feeling constantly devalued in the relation is by saying “No”, and having a perimeter that protects yourself.

You are setting yourself up for a lot of unnecessary conflicts, explanations and will eventually be taken for granted if you don’t respect your time and are available at the drop of a hat.

When should you say Yes?

Having such tight boundaries might seem that you always have to deny the things that you don’t want to do.

But that’s not it. There is no reason for you to be so selfish that you leave your friend stuck on a desolate road in the middle of the night because you need 8 hours of sound sleep.

You should definitely go out of the way and help others, but only when you know that you are capable enough of doing so, with your time, and other commitments.

You cannot help others until you help yourself.

Being open to experience is a wonderful thing. You get to learn so much more about yourself when you find you’re in an uncomfortable situation. But surely, this experience does not have to be at the expense of compromising the things that matter to you.