Isn’t it Selfish to Say NO?
In answer to the above question, I guess the answer is “It depends on our motives.” My favourite 2 writers on the topic of setting boundaries (psychologists Cloud and Townsend) make a helpful distinction between selfishness and stewardship. In general stewardship is responsibility for taking good care of resources entrusted to us. For example, protecting the environment through recycling, conservation, regeneration, and restoration. Our time, our minds, our bodies, our abilities, our resources, our property and our emotions - these are all given to us for us to maintain and to develop further.
We can mismanage our personal resources in one of two ways: allowing harmful influences to come across the boundaries around our lives OR allowing the depletion of our personal resources. In this sense, it is not selfish to set limits with others; it’s actually essential.
When I start feeling conflicted about setting limits with people, I ask myself questions like the following.
- When your neighbours ran out of space in their bins, would it be okay if they dumped their trash onto your backyard?
- Is it selfish to lock your front door at night?
That helps me reframe what’s happening. If this person’s asking me to do something for them that they can do for themselves, then the answer is a firm NO. If this person is using me in some way, then I can say “This is what you’re doing. How about you stop?”
And finally my friend, I can’t resist dropping a couple of questions-to-consider at the end here (mainly because I’m feeling the need to go away and consider them myself!).
- Where in your life do you feel like people are depleting or soiling your personal resources?
- How could you best set a limit with them while staying respectful of them as a human being?
“You must be willing to protect yourself and what you cherish, no matter what the cost.” - Christopher Paolini (i wonder if he’s related to the Australian Idol contestant Paulini??)
