expectations
For as long as I can remember, being conscientious was a good thing. Friends who are conscientious tend to be very reliable. They don’t flake or forget important details. Conscientious coworkers are the ones you never have to chase down to get something you asked for. They’re proactive, diligent, accomplished. If I had to define “conscientiousness,” it would be the desire to do a good job in whatever role you take on, whether that’s being a student, friend, partner, boss, parent, etc.
The operative word here is “good.” For conscientious people, “good” is a combination of what’s morally and ethically right and a high standard of excellence. Where conscientiousness breaks down is when you apply your own standard of “good” to other people and expect them to treat you with the same level of care and attention. Maybe there exists a rare breed of individual who’s conscientious with no expectation of reciprocity, but I think the vast majority of us carry some standard of behavior that we apply to ourselves and others.
When people ask me for things at work, I want to be as helpful as I can, especially if I can appreciate the importance of what they’re trying to accomplish. A coworker once asked me for a slide to include in his presentation. It seemed like a small ask, but I didn’t take it well because:
I did not have the slide he wanted and would have to build it from scratch
I was already very busy, preparing for our big annual conference the following week
What he was asking for required that I gather information from many different teams that were also swamped with said event
He gave me very short notice
So I basically told him it was an unfair request and can he please plan ahead next time. I reacted from a place of stress, and my tone probably came across as somewhat harsh. He passive-aggressively told me to chill out, which bothered me even more. We cleared the air later and laughed about it, but it struck me that had I not tried to “rise to the occasion,” we both would’ve been better off.
Stressful circumstances can bring out the worst in conscientious people. A less conscientious person might’ve glanced at his request, thought, “no way, dude,” and ignored it, not caring if he got what he needed. If I hadn’t responded, he probably would’ve assumed I was too busy and wouldn’t bother me.
The curse of being conscientious is that you tend to hold other people to the extremely high standards that you set for yourself. Part of my strong reaction had to do with the fact that I expected him to be more considerate of my time and capacity because I would’ve given him the same courtesy.
This type of dynamic is heightened in romantic relationships. A friend and I noticed we were always the ones finding fault in our respective partners’ behaviors. They never expressed annoyance with us. We’re obviously not perfect. Are men just more laidback, less fussy? There’s probably a lot more to this, but I think part of the reason is that we’re both much more conscientious than our partners.
Whether at work or in my personal life, I’m very good about responding to messages: on average, within an hour; usually no longer than 12 hours (if it takes longer than that, I probably never intended to respond). I don’t like the feeling that I’m keeping someone waiting. It’s rare for me to forget that I have to get back to someone about something. And I try not to commit to plans unless I’m fairly confident I can carry through with them.
I’m diligent about these things because I don’t like it when other people take days to respond to me or cancel last minute. The more I care about the person, the more it hurts. Because it seems like they have too many other priorities that take precedence over dashing off a 30-second response, that they don’t care that I’m left wondering about their silence. It’s easy to come to the conclusion that they don’t value me as much as I value them. And maybe that’s true. But I also have to remind myself that it’s pointless to compare how much we value each other because you can’t know another person’s experience, and they might not find the same actions hurtful, so they’re not as careful about avoiding them.
It’s important to acknowledge when someone’s behavior bothers us (our feelings are valid and shouldn’t be swept under the rug), but it’s equally important to recognize that people are just different and strange and maddening. There’s an ethos around “living lightly” that I need to embrace. Instead of feeling stung, how freeing would it be to laugh and say, “well, they’re just doing them”?
There’s a rigidity in the conscientious mindset that I’m trying to dismantle. It limits our capacity to empathize with people who have certain quirks or foibles. Accepting someone with all their imperfections is to acknowledge their humanity. And I think it starts with accepting my own need to be imperfect: to not always respond right away, to slip up and forget things, to cancel last minute. The more conscientious you are, the more you need to give yourself a break.
I am exactly like you. You cannot give yourself a break or change your opinion on someone because you know he of she is different, despite this reason being technically correct, your feeling/opinion is that what is your only way of looking at other people.
'Your way' to handle things includes your way of getting around with people who, in this text example, care less for you than you for them, hence you feel hurt more or less, depending on all facets of the situation.
You cannot decide that the other person is different, and than expecting your pain is less or gone or wathever.
Your pain is your self defence mechanism telling you something went wrong. The only thing that should matter to you, and to me too of course, is taking care of your (inner) self.
This implicates making choices. And in your text your exact problem is not taking the choice by protecting yourself and tell the other person you cannot do this or that. That is a good self-protecting choice.
Your problem arises when the person you turned down, critisized you. Maybe. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that
you thought he did AND the reaction you received in return 1 made you feel bad: over your way of handling this matter, whatever it is exactly is also not really important but what does matter here, in short, you felt hurt, and blamed yourself/ you were dissapointed in yourself.
1 your feeling is correct. If I were the one you 'rejected', I would have wished you succes and depending on the situation and my skills, offering you my help. Your idea about not being good enough is not, it actually sucks. And not just a bit! That is what is hurting you.
2 You even brought up the fact you could have avoided this situation by doing nothing at all.
My answer to 2 No way, doing nothing at all is inherently so not your style, that would have given you a probably worse feeling (about yourself).
And also: if you could have done that, you should have done that, and you didn't
And final: you do not need to avoid this, you can handle this! Feeling bad about yourself feels a bit like dying, but it really helps to train yourself it is not tru, and perfectly bareable.
And What you permit other people to have as imperfections, counts the same for you too!!!
2 you mentioned you could have been nicer or whathever you could have done better and last remark about this event that made you feel happy again (?) is that you talked about it with the one you couldn't be your dedicated self to
My answer: No you could not. If you could, you defenately would have done that. You are a human being, sensitive to busy and probably very good at concentrating on that you are doing, but doing that too long because you were too busy.
3 together laughed about it later.
That is because you want everybody to happy with you and the fact here is: you were good enough in the first place. If someone doesn't react supportive to you when you tell them you are busy, then is that their choice to react that way. And it should be best for you to realise that you did as you could, and think of the returned message as everything you want, but that it is absolutely not about/for you. So do not reply;-))!!? But you replied because you felt that way. That is also good.
But please, do not blame yourself here for whatever things you cannot do and don't have to do and last but not least: nobody can do (better)
You did not a single thing wrong here, exept blaming yourself for things that you cannot do any better. That is torturing yourself and it can be good to overthink were you learned this to cope with certain situations in your life where you weren't in controll to protect yourself so you might be able te learn you don't this mechanism no more because now you are in controll in protecting yourself
Good luck, you are already very very far on your way to selfbalance/selfpeace/just feeling happy: this one won't be hard to do for you;-))