The enemy
It seems life demands from us every ounce of our energy, talents, attention, time, and resources, all the time, everywhere.
Let it be friends, family members, significant other, kids, groups, house chores, hobbies, government, health, debts, pets, car, church, job, social media, goals, news…
Everywhere you look, something or someone is demanding more of you. We can think of them as the outside demanders.
If you don’t comply with the outside demanders’ requests, suddenly you become a not-that-good-of-a-person type.
Thinking you’re left with no other options, you proceed to comply with their requests.
Soon you realize you are being pulled away in many different directions, always in a hurry to complete more tasks, always pressured to please others, always solving this or that problem.
All the while, you’re left with no time to yourself, and not receiving enough in return. So little by little you grow tired and resentful.
I know the feeling because I have found myself contemplating this dynamic in my own life. For instance, I usually plan the coming week on Sundays.
Basically, I check my calendar and add tasks to a planning app, sorting them into pre-set categories. Then I color-code them: red for urgent, yellow for important, and blue for less critical tasks.
Ideally, the task’s journey would start from their specific category to the “IN PROCESS” category, to end up in the “COMPLETED TASKS” category (which is my favorite, by the way).
Everytime I’m able to painstakingly move one task to its final destination, I smile proudly and feel a tremendous sense of relief.
However, this sense of relief is short-lived once I look back and see all the red and yellow tasks inundating my lists, teasing me with that malicious look in their eyes. That moment sometimes… (who am I lying to?) almost always, makes me feel overwhelmed.
The to-do list is never-ending. The more you do, the more things appear, and apparently, out of thin air.
“There is so much to do and little time to do them.”, is my recurrent thought.
“How am I supposed to give more of me to them if they all keep asking me for more? There is only so much I can give away before I run out of… myself.” , I conclude, resentful.
Is it ever going to stop?
At some point, you start wondering if it’s ever going to stop.
If you had to guess, you would probably be right assuming, and accepting for that matter, that this unending cycle of things and people demanding your attention will always exist. It’s inevitable.
The worst part is that somehow we feel the pressure to meet all the demands while preventing ourselves from going insane.
Even worse, when you finally decide to pour into yourself some love and pampering, you feel guilty for wasting time, money, and energy on yourself.
I mean, it’s okay to completely give yourself away to others, but to keep some of you to yourself, is somehow wrong?
However, I don’t blame them.
If I look deep-down in my heart, I can find the reasons to forgive them, to forgive all the requests from these outside demanders, however pushy or illogical they seem at times.
Once, while reading "The Origin of Species" by Charles Darwin, I read that we all are trying to survive and make the most of our own circumstances, that even when we are unable to fully appreciate it, the trees find themselves in a constant and silent war with other plants and trees in order to get the most resources and thus strive in the wild.
While the success of the trees means they took away resources from their environment in order to develop themselves, it also means they are now in conditions to give back to other plants, trees, animals, and even people. Thus, positively contributing to the normal cycle of life.
Aren’t you and I, like the silent trees, also trying to make the most of our own circumstances as well?
Have you ever stopped for a moment to think that you also need things from others, from those same outside demanders we are complaining about?
You are your own responsibility
However self-sufficient you think you are, at some point you will, if you haven’t already (which I highly doubt), approach someone and ask them to provide you with some of their own limited resources to you, let it be time, energy, food, money, attention, information, services, etc.
In this sense, you also play the part of an outside demander to other people and things.
And, when you think about it in a wide sense, there is nothing wrong with that dynamic of exchange. You give, you receive. You receive, you give.
Sometimes, you will find yourself on the receiving end, and other times on the giving end. To want to stay out of this dynamic is to want to remove yourself from the natural order of things, therefore, from life.
“Well, if such a dynamic of exchange is so natural, why does it drain so much out of me when I need to meet outside demands? Is it supposed to hurt this much?”
The reason is simple: most likely you are not setting boundaries.
You keep putting other’s needs first indiscriminately, while belittling your own needs.
But you cannot give what you lack.
By not taking a moment for yourself to recharge, you are doing a disservice to others and to yourself. To others because you give them the crumbles of you, leaving them dissatisfied; and to yourself because there’s nothing left in you to enjoy and to feel at peace.
The emotional distress you are feeling is your whole being alerting you that somewhere in your dynamic of exchange there is an unbalance that needs to be addressed.
Therefore, regardless of how uncomfortable the following statement makes you feel, I think it would be accurate to say that, for the most part, you are the one to blame for the emotional distress you feel when having to meet the requests from outside demanders.
While it is true that there are outside demands you cannot avoid and that are imposed on you virtually by force, and which not always are enjoyable to fulfill, it is also true that many others are self-imposed.
You are not obligated to fulfill every request, or at least, not right away.
And yet, you keep accepting every request that comes your way and piling them up on your to-do list with many others waiting to be fulfilled.
When the pressure on you becomes too much, you then become resentful because they all keep asking you for more, but don’t seem to care about your own needs. “They are so inconsiderate”, you think… “Don’t they see I also have problems of my own that I need help with?”
The hard truth is that it is not the outside demander’s responsibility to make sure you are okay, that you have enough of yourself to give them some of you.
It's your responsibility alone to honor your boundaries and make them known so you remain sane.
As the asker, the outside demanders are simply playing their role in trying to fulfill their own needs.
As the giver, you must also play your role and decide whether you can, and should, fulfill their request. If you can't or shouldn't, then don't.
In the meantime, remember: if it hasn’t already, your turn will come when you will play the outside demander’s role as well.
It is what it is
Something to keep in mind so you don’t get frustrated with this dynamic of exchange is what the author Robert Green suggests in his book “The laws of human nature” : accept others as an objective fact, as neutral as stars and plants; they just exist.
He goes on to explain that the primary cause for emotional distress in our interaction with others occurs because we judge them, we want them to think and act in a certain way, like us.
In other words, we want others to be what they are not, and to give us what they can’t or won’t give us.
Therefore, stop thinking others are obligated to care for you the same way you care for them. Doing more for them won’t make them see the struggle behind your smile.
If they care for you in the same way you care for them, great; be grateful for that. If not, also great; accept it as a neutral fact, and like the silent trees, be proactive in finding alternate ways to meet your own needs.
Otherwise, you may find yourself trapped in an exhausting cycle, either taking on more requests in spite of knowing there’s no way you will be able to pull it off, or feeling depressed because of the “unfairness of the world”.
Will the world end?
I understand, though, why some of us would fall into such a trap.
First, it is very uncomfortable to say “No” to others. Sometimes the reason for this is that you are scared, and other times because you love them very much.
You avoid saying the truth (that you can’t or shouldn’t take on that request, or not at the moment) even if it implies you will suffer in silence later on, or that you will hurt them in the long run for not being honest from the very beginning.
Second, it's easier to let others control you with their many demands. It frees you from the burden of taking responsibility for your own life.
To set your own terms can be scary. Suddenly you become the one to blame when things go wrong.
But when others control your life, and things do go wrong, you feel justified to blame them and free yourself from the guilt of knowing you acted irresponsibly towards them and yourself.
For example, I was upset for the past couple of weeks because I felt that some of my responsibilities were forcing me to pay them too much attention, which didn't allow me enough time to slow down, and make art.
“How could they do this to me? Why don’t they give me a break to do the things I want to do?”, I would say to myself while thinking about the “selfishness” of those outside demanders.
Two or three days ago I decided I had enough, and that I was going to draw regardless.
So I went to the park, and after finding a nice spot underneath the trees, I started drawing on my sketchbook for several minutes.
While making art, I was able to bring my attention to the present, and to bring peace to my mind, even it was for a brief moment.
But was this brief moment which reminded me that it was okay to slow down and breathe without the necessity of having to justify my existence by meeting the requests from outside demanders; that to meet my own needs was not only enough good reason, but that it was mandatory for my well being.
When I felt satisfied with my art session, I stood up and went back home.
Miraculously, my life back home didn't crumble down in my absence by my “selfish” act of wanting to redirect some of my energy towards myself, in this case, to make art.
Interestingly enough, as a byproduct of investing in myself, I actually felt even more motivated to keep attending my many responsibilities back at home.
The world won't stop functioning because you decided to take a moment for yourself. I mean, you are not that special; nobody is.
Only you are the one responsible to take care of yourself.
Conclusion
I hope that by this point I have convinced you that you are not less of a person by wanting to redirect some of your energy inward, to yourself. This is not a selfish act, not in the way you have been thinking about it: it is an act of self-respect.
Ultimately, it is an act of love towards yourself and others.
Taking the time to replenish yourself will prevent you from giving back to others from a position of resentment or exhaustion. Instead, it will allow you to give back and attend the requests from outside demanders intentionally, not compulsively.
Remember, the perfect time for you to take care of your own well being doesn’t exist. If left to chance, your calendar and your to-do list will always be filled with many outside demands.
You need to make the time and to create the space to attend your inner demands by taking the initiative in setting and honoring your boundaries, thus meeting your own needs.
If you don’t make your well-being your responsibility, most likely nobody will.
The truth is you are not at war with the outside demanders. They are not your enemies. Your lack of boundaries and self-respect is.
As it is also written in the book mentioned above by Robert Green: it is not others you should fix, but the dynamic with them.
Sometimes you give, sometimes you take, a natural dynamic of exchange which forms part of life.
Like the silent trees in the forest, your ability to give depends on how well you nurture yourself first.
Author: Jason Berberena
Writer, visual artist, and co-founder of Kreation Artzone