Who You Are versus What You Do

Be clear about the difference between who/what you are and what you do.  The relationships in your life are based on one or the other. Neither is necessarily good or necessarily bad. Frankly, the difference is in how much work/effort you put into what you do versus how easily you do the things that constitute who/what you are. For example, who I am is someone who will always wants small group conversations with my good friends. That is effortless for me, and I don’t even think of it as doing anything. I love my inner circle and could talk with them until the end of time. I always have space to cheerlead! On the other hand, if one of them was “bad off sick”, I would help with things like cleaning up because it’s what good friends do, but I wouldn’t be excited about it. As a matter of fact, I’m inclined to see if they’d accept “send a maid/cleaner” service. 

Here’s my first point: the things that you don’t enjoy or do easily are things that are the types of things that you probably don’t want to do frequently. However, if your connection to someone is based on what you don’t enjoy or do easily, that relationship will be impacted when you quit doing those things. Consider someone who has worked in job for years and has come to think of themselves as important. Then, they retire and the phone stops ringing. It’s because someone else is filing that role or doing those things. The relationships that person had were built on what they did, not who they were. Again, there’s nothing wrong with being connected based on your role…UNLESS YOU DON’T KNOW WHO IS IN YOUR LIFE FOR WHICH REASON.

My second point: it’s really hard to accept when we are the maid in someone’s life when that’s not what we want to be. It’s even harder when you keep showing up as the maid because you’re hoping that they’ll eventually put you in a different box or become a different person. That’s tough and a recipe for self-inflicted heartache. If you accept people and situations for what they are, you are better able to see the power of your choices and behaviors, including whether you want to keep cleaning up.