Plato urged us 2000 years ago to use our time wisely, because it is the only good that truly belongs to us. “It is not a little time that we have, but a lot that we have lost”. He was telling us to choose carefully how we spend our time, what activities and to whom we give our most precious possession.
I was saying the other day in a small circle that people get on your head if you let them. Anyone: partner, child, friend, any close person. Some were outraged by my statement, others smiled. Yes, no one knows where your boundaries are if you don’t signal them properly. Coworkers learned that you wash the coffee cups every morning because you didn’t verbally communicate that you don’t like it. Maybe you grumbled something, demonstratively slammed a few cups, but didn’t tell them assertively that you washed the cups on certain days because you noticed that others had more work and wanted to help, but didn’t you will always do this. Your partner has gotten used to you making breakfast every day and it seems normal for him to do so if you have never calmly communicated to him that you would like to share this duty. If you slammed the plate in his face and yelled at him, all he knew was that you had something with him, but not what. It is human nature to extend our “territory” on the plot of the other, if it does not have well-established boundaries. We all do this to some extent. That doesn’t make us bad, it makes us… human. We owe nothing to anyone, but neither do others owe us anything. So if we want something from others it would be nice to open our mouths and communicate. You might be amazed that others have no idea what you want from them and are happy to please you. Or not, but that’s another discussion. Whatever the outcome, this is the only way we can stop wasting time, ours and others. But we want to be good, not to upset others, so we don’t say anything.
We tend to frame everything as good or bad. It’s not our fault, that’s how we’ve been taught to think. Some patterns were imposed on us, our own ability to process facts was limited. We were told to be “good”, to help others, even at our own expense. But if we neglect ourselves we are unhappy. We are tired, we are sick, we are frustrated. In our times we are urged to turn our attention away from ourselves and spend more and more time attending to others, watching what others are doing, giving others parts of us, narrow ourselves down to make others whole. If each of us took more care of our own person, wouldn’t there be fewer helpless people who would need help? Would we not be a world full of sages living in harmony and equality? Would we not spend our time together sharing from our overflow, instead of putting ourselves in a position of superiority, that we want to give, or inferiority, that we want to be given?
