Emotional Boundaries
This was a very emotional and recent session so my notes are still being formed.
Relationships should not be a trap.
Situation
Someone starts to share an emotion-laden story about something that has happened to a third-party with whom I am not acquainted. I am busy working. Because the topic is so heavy and the person sharing clearly needs an outlet, I listen and engage rather than completing my work. Later, when recounting the story, I wondered:
What other choice did I have?
I listened because I want to be a friend and from a desire to be helpful. I totally had other choices, though.
There were quite a few things I wrote down and want to remember as this was a tough and emotional but really good session.
- It is not my job to protect other people from being sad or angry.
- I am allowed to ask others for help to make my life better.
- I deserve to be here.
Don’t let wanting to appear to be OK get in the way. Challenge “I don’t want to be a burden on others”. I don’t want to hurt other people and the consequence is my own sorrow or anger. There will be sorrow and anger: why should it only be me?
Instead of worrying whether emotion or reason has the steering wheel: throw out that analogy and try this one on: it’s a paddleboat and everyone gets an oar.
Things like this can be easier said than done: learning how to recognize when I am in a situation like that is the key.
As we closed, we discussed an interesting passage from Ayn Rand’s 1964 work The Virtue of Selfishness:
In popular usage, the word ‘selfishness’ is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends . . . and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment.
Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word ‘selfishness’ is: concern with one’s own interests.
This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.
This was certainly a new perspective on selfishness. I am still digesting it but this led me to ethical egosim, an imperfect and closed system. All the same, I think that the quote above can help me in decision-making that increases my happiness.