One afternoon, my friend came to me and opened up her problem. She told me she felt tired and did not have enough time to rest. The illness started to attack her. Her body wasn’t in good shape lately. Also, she missed her kids, because she couldn’t be there for them. Before she told me why, I already knew the problem was. It was not because she had fully loaded works, but she failed to make boundaries for herself. What happened exactly? We have this one friend who constantly wants us to always accompany her, even though it’s on the weekend. From morning until late night. Since she never speaks to us, what’s wrong with her until she didn’t want to spend her time in her own home. So we are truly clueless. We only could guess. Don’t get me wrong, that is nothing wrong with making a meaningful friendship. That is one of the blessings from above. But what is wrong is if we make our problem into someone else problem. There are certain people in our personal life who seem to have no boundaries. They are hijacking our time, our life.
Each of us has that kind of people. People who tend to become a hard burden to us compared to the others. They are the kind of people who make their problems our problems. They tend to divert us from our own purposes/goals. They only care about their own agendas. And if we let them, they will prevent us for making a highest contribution by sucks our time and energy with the activities that is important to them. Remember that one, the activities that are important to them, not the activities that are essential for us. It means that they are not respecting us. When someone doesn’t respect our personal time and space, they are prioritizing their needs over our well-being. It’s emotionally draining and toxic.
I’m not saying we don’t need to have compassion toward others. As a human being, we are social creatures, we live side by side with others, we need others. And sometimes we have to help and serve them to make a difference in their life. But when we make their problems into our problems, it means that we are not helping them, we make them helpless. Paralyzed. When we take over their problems, what we do is we take over their capability to solve the problems. (Essentialism, Greg McKeown).
Back to my friend case, she was supposed to make clear boundaries with her. Imagine if she didn’t always say yes to her. Maybe she will stay at home and in the end, this one friend will find a way to solve her problem, whatever it is. Remember, pushing someone to solve their own problems will be beneficial to them or us. They can happily solve their problem, and we happily get back our own life. But maybe this is the worst case, she will find other friends that she can hijack? That is not our problem anymore. It means that she is the one who ran away from the problem. She is the problem.
How can we escape from this kind of people? It’s totally okay for us to set clear boundaries. Saying, “Sorry I can’t make it today, my kids need me. Or “I truly understand you’re struggling, but I need my own space too“. That is healthy, not selfish. We also have to remember, not every problem is ours to solve. Here’s the harsh truth, some people get too comfortable letting “others” fix their issues. Don’t be that “others”! We are not responsible for carrying everyone’s weight. Just focus on our weight. Wise man says: “We already have so much on our plate, let alone carrying other people’s burdens.”
The boundaries are a source of freedom. When we don’t set boundaries in our life, we can be imprisoned by the boundaries that people set for us. In contrast, if we have clear boundaries, we are free to be in all areas or all options that we already choose intentionally for us to explore. Boundaries aren’t restrictive, they actually give us more freedom to focus on the essential things in life. By defining what we will and won’t allow, we gain the freedom to focus on what truly matters in our lives. Setting boundaries is not about limitation. It’s about Empowerment.
Love,
Kirana
