TUESDAY THOUGHTS

Moving, or removing your carefully set boundaries to accommodate that at which your discernment is blowing whistles and waving giant red flags, (because your trusting, empathetic nature, and people pleasing tendencies, are making those sad, pitiful faces, again), is silly. Freeze. Remember? Those boundaries are there for a valid reason. They didn’t erect themselves. They’re not decoration. 

You can take your time to ponder a thing. 

You can delay a response.

You can disagree. 

You can politely decline. 

You can resist pushiness.

You don’t have to cave. 

You can stick to your own plan. 

You can rely on your own lived experience.

You can say “No, thank you”. 

Explanations aren’t necessary—even to people who have convinced themselves that you owe them one.

You want to hope that people’s intentions and motives are pure. Sometimes, you can see that they are not. That’s what your instincts are for—and your business hat. Keep it on. Stay within the parameters of the agreement. Keep your eyes open for people who act as if they are your savior, or spokesperson. Trust your gut when opportunism tries to masquerade as promotion or help, and networking camouflages itself in garments of friendship.

 Some people need others to be indebted and beholden to them. They collect people in order to broadcast the “good deeds” they do for others. Everything they do is performative. They seek praise, and followers, not collaboration.

Notice when people are sizing you up, and “inviting” you into their spaces. They see your value, fail to see YOU, and have wrongly concluded that you are pliable, gullible, needy, desperate, can be used (or bought), and are desirous of the same superficial things that they are. 

Some people are purely transactional. They want to know what can you do for, or bring to them, their thing, or their reputation.  How can your presence at, or participation in their endeavors make THEM look, in the eyes of those whose attention THEY seek? They want access and proximity because they think that you are their ticket to an inner circle, or higher rung that they desire.

It’s one thing for others to try to represent you, sidestep your decisions, monopolize your time, impose their agendas, bully you, guilt trip you, or twist your arm to get you to comply with their wishes. It’s another for you to allow it; abandon your firmly uttered “No”, ignore your instincts, fail to speak up and correct erroneous information, or disregard your own spidey senses, and end up in circumstances you don’t want to be in. 

You don’t need to be dragged into another clique, spin- off, group, club, or organization that’s more about busyness than business. Your reputation, experience, competence, and body of work is sound. If you’re going to align yourself with anything else, consider your limitations and deal breakers. If you’re going to do something, vet it, and let it be YOUR idea to hop on board. In addition to it being worthwhile, clear, productive, stress-free, beneficial, consistent, honest, fun, healthy, and solid, let it feed your soul.