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Some people are excellent with boundaries.  They take on only what they know they can do without making themselves miserable.  They don’t feel guilt when they can’t volunteer.  They say “yes” when they can, but they have no compunction about saying “no.”

I am not one of those people.

I am terrible at setting and enforcing boundaries.  People make assumptions about what I’m willing to do and rather than correct those assumptions, I go along with them.  I say “yes” even when I know that saying “yes” means that I will give up sleep.  I am the type of person who boldly declares that I’m about to start setting boundaries, and then doesn’t set them.

I want to say “no” but it comes out more like “nuuuuuuuuuuh” and then the other person assumes that guttural moan was a “yes.”  Not their fault; I need to learn how to enunciate and mean it.

Cheryl Strayed gave advice recently to someone who described themselves as a recovering “yes” addict who has found that people are cranky with her newfound “no” (which is probably my fear — that people will be miffed if I say “no.”):

I know many men struggle to say no, but there’s another layer of complexity for women. We’re culturally conditioned to be the nurturing ones, and there’s also a smaller field we get to move in when it comes to what’s considered selfish. Women are accused of being selfish for acts and qualities we deem perfectly fine in men. I’d say that’s where at least some of your guilt comes from, Ghost. When I’m feeling guilty about saying no, it helps me enormously to ask myself, “What are my intentions?” Answering that is so clarifying and calming to me.

The problem, of course, is that if I’m honest about my intentions, it’s just to get back a little down time.  It’s to get in some book reading and video game playing.  I’m not saying “no” in order to make room in my schedule for saving ducklings.  I’m making room in my schedule to jump over virtual mud puddles as Pitfall Harry.  And this is my right: we are all entitled to down time, and we get to use that down time however we choose.  But it does complicate the “no” when I think about the instead.

Some people achieve that sweet spot between yes and no, and for whatever reason, they never deal with the ire that the woman in the article expressed once she started saying “no.”  I’m not talking about the guilt — I think there are many people who feel zero seconds of guilt over saying “no.”  What I’m talking about is the people who don’t attract any ire over their “no.”  They say “no” and everyone accepts it without a second thought.

That is what I want to understand more than the lack of guilt over saying “no” in the first place.

The New York Times loves to write articles about stress, and we keep reinforcing their production of articles about stress by reading and responding to their articles about stress.  It’s a nasty cycle.

But I did love this fact from one of their recent “how to manage stress” articles:

The researchers looked at death rates in the study group over nine years. The results are startling. The study found that having a lot of stress in your life was not linked with premature death. But having a lot of stress in your life and believing it was taking a toll on your health increased risk of premature death by 43 percent.

Simplifying this to annoy all the scientists reading this post: as long as you don’t believe stress is negatively impacting your health, it will not negatively impact your health.  Love this and looking in the other direction.  What stress?

*******

The New York Times gave a lot of advice on how to manage stress, but they did not include any of MY ways of managing stress, all of which I believe are superior to eating well and exercising:

Ice

Chew on ice.  It’s as simple as that.  The sound will annoy everyone around you, but you will be filled with laser sharp focus and peace of mind.  I chew upward of 8 to 9 cups of ice per day.  I pour myself water just so I can quickly finish the water and then get to the good stuff: the ice.

You know how not thinking that stress is negatively impacting your health will stop stress from negatively impacting your health?  I believe the same is true for ice.  I believe that chewing on ice makes my teeth stronger.  Therefore, it makes my teeth stronger.  Please do not tell me otherwise.

Take on More

There is an old Yiddish folktale involving goats and chickens and stuffing your house full of new stressors so the original stressors don’t seem as bad, and I think the rabbis were onto something.  When work seems untenable, I take on more work.  Then I look back and think, “I had so much free time before I took on this extra work!”  It doesn’t help me in the moment since I now need to do the extra work, but it’s great for retrospection.

Crying in the Shower

Really, New York Times?  An entire article about managing stress and not one mention of crying in the shower?

Fine… and now some things they left off that actually help:

Write Everything Down

This seems like a no-brainer and yet no one ever puts it in a managing stress article: write everything down.  Half of my stress comes from not knowing which direction to point myself so I can take care of what needs to get done and get back to the ice chewing.  The times when I don’t feel stressed?  When I write everything down that needs to get done, create a manageable to-do list, and then move down the list.

Having it written down means that you don’t have to think.  And speaking of not thinking…

Make Decisions Once

The other half of my stress is constantly needing to make decisions.  I’m not talking about the big, life changing decisions.  I’m talking about things like “what are we eating tonight?”  So I sit down and make a bunch of decisions all at once.  Like I plan all the meals for the week in one sitting.  And then I put the list on the refrigerator and know exactly what we’re going to consume at various points in the day.  No on-the-fly decisions to make, and I never schedule complicated meals on complicated work days.

How do you manage stress?

Invisibilia had a disturbing episode this season that I’m still thinking about.  It talked about the benefits and dangers of considering a “future” self.  You can listen here:

The benefit story was, of course, inspiring.  Boy with nothing sets his sights on becoming a deejay and eventually reaches Canada and becomes a deejay.  That deejay dream kept him going when he scrounged for food and shelter to stay alive.

The drawback story was upsetting.  It told the story of two kids who committed suicide after not being able to reach their future self.  In both cases, the teenager had a dream of attending a certain college and was using hypnosis to try to reach said goal.  The implication was that the hypnosis sessions were directly tied to the deaths.

The larger point is whether it is healthy to tell people that they can achieve anything.  Do we do more damage when conveying this mindset, or is the hope of reaching a future self a necessary ingredient in living a fulfilling life?  Is dreaming up a future self different from goal setting?  Can goals be bad for you?

The episode clearly made me think about infertility; being goal-driven to build a family and the disappointments that came with that goal when I was having trouble reaching my future parenting self.  It made me wonder if there was a way to build a strong desire for a goal while also including an escape route to a different goal if it becomes clear that the first goal isn’t going to come true.  Maybe it isn’t possible to harness the drive needed to achieve some goals without blotting out all other possibilities.  But in doing so, you risk severe anguish when the brain can’t find closure.

It was obviously a lot of food for thought.

Lifehacker recently had an article on how to answer the “when will you have a baby?” question when you’re infertile.  It’s an interesting read, and I’ll give you a second to go through their advice if you’ll come back to discuss.  Are you back?  Good.

Part of the problem is that this article assumes the question is being asked in a straightforward manner.  Someone pleasantly looks at you and says over their drink, “Say, Melissa!  When will you have a baby?”  And then I can politely answer back with one of their stock answers.  Conversation tied up with a bow and… scene.

But that’s not how it goes.

More often than not, the question is not actually asked as a question.  It’s made as a comment.  Or it’s part of a joke.  People don’t ask the question insomuch as they poke you with their words, as if they’re trying to dislodge the answer by virtually shaking you, much as one does a snack item stuck in a vending machine.

I’ve never had someone thoughtfully pose the question in the same way that they asked me where I was applying for college, looking for a house, or applying for a job.  Once I entered the land of marriage and baby, people came at the topic sideways.  Assumptions were made about the timing and inevitability of the lifecycle event, and then jokes or remarks followed.  The intention of the jokes or remarks was to get the information the listener wanted, indirectly.

I guess I wondered what everyone else has experienced.  Has the topic arrived in an intrusive but direct question, or have people broached the topic of babies through implication, comment, and unsolicited advice?

I am positive that I once took a Myers-Briggs Personality Test because I remember talking to my parents about the results, but I have zero clue right now which personality type I fit and only a modicum of interest in re-answering all the questions in order to get the result.

But I was thinking about this because I read a humour piece on what everyone wishes I would stop doing based on my Myers-Briggs personality type.  I thought that maybe I was an INFP (“Acting like your dark, brooding thoughts make you superior to other people because you’re deeper and more complex than they are.”) except that I really fit the annoying qualities of an ISFJ as well as an ISFP.

Rather than take the test, which would directly reveal my personality type, I decided to check this chart and figure it out by the description.

I know that I’m definitely an I and not an E, so that eliminates 8 possibilities.

I think I’m more S than N.  Maybe.  I don’t know.  Maybe I’m more N.

I think I’m more T than F.  Like I make quick decisions and move on.  That sounds more T than F, right?

And I know I’m definitely a J and not a P.  I am the least flexible and spontaneous person that I know.

Which makes me an ISTJ.  Or an INTJ.  (Or maybe an ISFJ or an INFJ).

So I think I’m an INTJ.  Maybe.  I should probably just take the test, right?  What are you?

And if I am an INTJ, that means my most annoying quality is “Talking to everyone like you’re a wise sage from the future, sent back in time to lecture them on the foolishness of their actions and thoughts.”

Yep.