responsibility
where to draw the line
The workplace has given me a distorted sense of responsibility. In the past, I’ve had bosses who made me accountable for other people’s thoughts and feelings. When someone in a position of higher power didn’t agree with me, it was because I could’ve done more to influence them: I could’ve pulled them aside before the meeting, I could’ve socialized my project with their team, I could’ve framed the problem in a certain way to avoid triggering their sensitivities.
This was stressful, especially when I was told that my career depended on these people thinking favorably of me. I felt an overwhelming sense of responsibility. If someone didn’t know what was going on with my project, it was my fault because it was my job to keep them informed. But another way to look at it is: are these people reading my status updates? Are they taking the time to understand what’s going on, to seek out the information they don’t have? How much of it is truly my responsibility v. theirs?
This year, I came across the concept of “discarding other people’s tasks” in Adlerian psychology. Often, we’re taking on other people’s tasks, which results in undue suffering. Adler argues that it’s important to draw the line between your tasks and someone else’s. When applied to romantic relationships, it means giving your partner the space they need to perform their tasks. When we overcompensate for others, we stifle their ability to take responsibility.
You believe in your partner; that is your task. But how that person acts with regard to your expectations and trust is other people’s tasks. When you push your wishes without having drawn that line, before you know it you’re engaging in stalker-like intervention.
— Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga, The Courage to be Disliked
In the past, if my boyfriend and I had a fight about something, I would later blame myself. I’m the type of person who likes to get to a resolution and move on. But some people take conflict really hard: rather than see it as an opportunity to learn and grow, they see it as a sign that the relationship is doomed. When I realized this about my boyfriend, I blamed myself for overreacting, for picking small bones with him. Sure, I can improve the way I express feelings of anger or hurt. But walking on eggshells around someone is problematic: it overcompensates for their vulnerability. It’s their job to work on being a better communicator and more capable of resolving conflict in a healthy way.
In any relationship, it’s important to recognize what’s your responsibility, what’s not, and to draw a clear line. I have responsibility over my thoughts, emotions, and actions. But I don’t have responsibility over how someone else reacts to me. All I can do is conduct myself in a way that is most authentic to who I am. This is really hard because the more intimate the relationship (family, significant others), the more we care about how the other person feels. We want to be as helpful as possible. And that’s not a bad thing. But there’s a difference between caring about someone (wanting them to thrive) and doing their job for them.
Sometimes the best way to help someone is to simply give them space. That means not imposing your will upon them and not wrapping up your anxieties with their actions. In Season 2 of Couples Therapy (highly recommend this show, by the way!), Dr. Orna Guralnik gives Michal the homework of taking two hours out of her day to just relax. This was hard for her because she tends to take charge and do most of the housework, all the while feeling frustrated by her husband’s passivity, or as she calls it, his “laziness.” When she took the therapist’s advice and did nothing, guess what? Her husband showed up. He picked up the slack.
Everyone needs to learn to help themselves. These days I’m seeing the wisdom in separating my tasks from others’. It’s wonderfully liberating, but it also feels unnatural because of how much I’ve been conditioned to worry about other people. Of course, if I’m managing a project at work, I still need to worry about other people’s tasks to an extent—I need to check in on them, to remind them to complete XYZ by a certain date—but I can’t do their jobs for them. A project’s success or failure doesn’t hinge on a single individual. With relationships, it’s no different: every successful relationship was built by two people, and I’ve come to accept that I’m only responsible for myself.