Three Times Carolyn Hax Made Me Think
Actually, she makes me think a lot more often than that, but there have been three posts that I’ve bookmarked recently. AND I am writing this early and scheduling it to post because, in case you didn’t catch this with the Roundup, I am NOT thinking today. No thinking. Not even one second of it. I am eating chips in my pyjamas and watching television. My brain is off.
So these were all columns I noted back when my brain was on.
The first was a situation where the person was making a lot of assumptions because a sibling didn’t respond to their text message. They were asking permission to not share future news with this sibling because they obviously didn’t care or didn’t approve. Obviously?
Anyway, Carolyn wrote:
I think it’s absolutely astonishing that you’re poised to punish a till-now “close” sibling because you “can’t help feeling they must feel” they “have . . . reason for feeling” that “it seems” “I’m feeling” they “seemed to pointedly” feel. Or seem. Or point. A lot of seem and feel, signifying nothing. Before you start a cold war, at least make even a cursory effort to find out whether the other side is actually on the other side.
How many times do you read meaning and make decisions based on… nothing? On not having information? I do. That column made me check myself and stop. And I loved this additional line: “Choose not to take things personally, and watch most problems go away.”
The second was a dad who wanted to give his daughter unsolicited advice on a situation that he knew nothing about. I know––always a great idea. Carolyn told him this brilliant statement:
Humility is our best friend. It urges us to say to ourselves in these situations: “I know what I witnessed, but do I know what it meant?”
Again, how many times do you jump to thinking you understand something but when you take a step back and ask yourself what it means, you can’t answer the question? For me — all the time.
The third was a woman who feels guilty when she sets firm boundaries. Carolyn’s thought is obvious, but it still feels like something to print out and put somewhere that I’ll see it on a regular basis:
You’ll need to reinforce your own conviction that you’re entitled to choose how you use your time — and others aren’t. This is the bedrock on which all good boundaries rest: the certainty that it isn’t selfish to have them.
That’s what I have. So what good advice have you read recently?
6 comments
OMG a million times YES “Choose not to take things personally, and watch most problems go away.”
Of course I have been guilty of taking things too personally in the past…but idk more recently something clicked that sometimes I need to take a step back and realize that IT’S NOT ABOUT ME. And almost always, it’s not. And so it’s been my best advice to my kids, family, friends, and myself when something is bothering them/me. Sometimes people need to have their moment, they need to yell or whatever, and if you just let them and not let it bother you and move on, it’s over and done.
Setting boundaries with my time is the single most important thing I have ever done for my sanity. I’ve never been apologetic about saying No to something if I didn’t want to do it or was scheduled too much. I can’t live so over-scheduled and so I have always chose not to. And I was surprised to find that this is a real problem among my friends and other parents…but I have never found it hard to say NO, and so many struggle with this.
Oh my gosh, I remember each of these! Good reminders, for sure. As for recent good advice, Carolyn Hax’s response to a woman who may not be able to breastfeed struck me as truth for so much of life. These lines right here: “As for the “loss of that possibility,” please know, even when we get to enjoy something great, that experience automatically rules out some other thing that might also have been great or even greater. So we’re always, always saying goodbye to something, some possibility, some other way of telling our story. It’s natural to feel these losses more when we’re giving up something we specifically hoped for or that most people seem to have, or when it’s the result of something going wrong — but the process is the same. It’s about grieving what isn’t to be, then embracing what we have, and even finding advantages we didn’t expect.”
I read Carolyn Hax’s column daily and her chat weekly. She is one of the reasons I am a paid subscriber to the Washington Post. 😉
Really great advice in all 3 situations, and all 3 are common enough for all of us for the advice to be valuable. Developing healthy boundaries — knowing where I end and another begins and keeping my own self appropriate — is a lifelong journey. Carolyn Hax seems to have a knack for distilling the grey areas.
Love the quote you bolded about not making everything about me.
This is great. I sometimes use my entire month’s free Wash Post articles on Carolyn Hax columns! That first piece of advice – I was trying to convey something similar to someone last week. They’re very touchy, but they were taking offence when it wasn’t clear that offence was being given.
And I have my hand up for the third one. Women are so easily taught not to set boundaries, or that they are selfish when they do so. Sigh. Still, infertility and loss taught me that, and so I’m better than I was.
This made me laugh: “A lot of seem and feel, signifying nothing.” Haha, way to allude to Shakespeare! 🙂
I am guilty of all of these, although I never punish other people for what I think or assume that they must be thinking or feeling, only myself. I can cause myself a great deal of angst over pretend arguments and misunderstandings that exist purely in my head. And oh yes, the boundaries… I feel that guilt as well, but I LOVE her quote about determining how you spend your time being up to you and you only. I think it’s taken me until the past couple years to really decide that if something sounds highly unenjoyable, that I don’t HAVE to do it (unless it is truly unavoidable, like a family event I can’t skip or a funeral or something). Great advice! And yeah, letting go of taking things personally is truly secret sauce.