Scott Soliloquy: Boundaries I grew up a People Pleaser. Ingrained and automatic. I have worked hard on acting appropriately, not reacting inappropriately. I have a belief that we see a small percentage of ourselves and are pretty poor at evaluating our behavior, because, duh, I am acting perfectly fine 100% of the time. (Not) My dad always said, "Strong fences make good neighbours." Boundaries are important to me. And keeping them is not always easy. and often people do not appreciate it when I set one and hold to it. And naturally, this all leads up to today's story. I am volunteering at a small guesthouse complex in a small village about 25 km from the Dead Sea. It is a lovely place with an amazing owner, Noam. I am helping him with the regular maintenance as well as with some videos and web site improvements. A day or two ago, a female friend whom he hadn't seen in 7 years, stopped by. She ended up staying in a spare room. She was very interested in what I do and wanted to talk about making some courses. I felt like she was pushing in and starting to takeaway from my time with Noam and working on his projects - the reason I was here. The other characteristic I observed was she seemed to regularly start talking in the middle of my sentences. I began to feel a bit irritated. An hour ago, we were eating dinner and she began asking more questions, but not waiting to hear the answers. So I told her, I feel like you are not listening to me, because I don't believe people can listen and talk at the same time. You start talking in the middle of my sentences. She closed down completely then. I had kinda figured out we were not a good fit and did not want to work with her anyway. Once dinner was over, I excused myself and went to do some work on my computer. Half an hour later I received a relatively long message from her. I did not read it carefully. In my scanning I picked up the word: "bully" and some comment about shock and respect. So I deleted the half read message and blocked her. It is the first time I ever blocked someone who was like 6 feet away from me. LOL I went to show Noam some mockups of web sites for us to look at and decide upon. I mentioned to him my interaction with his long lost friend. We had spoken earlier in the day about her and he confirmed that my impressions were his. In fact, he appreciated that I brought it up as he was wondering if he was 'mean' for wanting her to move on. HIs response was supportive. He started laughing when I mentioned what a bully I was. We were outside and she returned from a walk. I said, hi. No response. I think she knew she was blocked... Before dinner she had a loooong argumentative conversation with another fellow here. The lesson here is you can engage in people or not. You normally do NOT have to. I prefer to engage with people who listen and consider my words as I listen and consider theirs. People who are closed minded, or set in their ways, are not worth the effort. It is like banging your head against a brick wall with 6 inch spikes embedded in it. There are three groups of people in the world: 1) Those who live and die by "A" 2) Those who live and die by "B" and 3) Those who are on the fence between "A" and "B" The people on the fence can be 'helped'. People do switch from "A" to "B", like St. Peter did (From persecutor to Christian evangelist). They tend to go from one extremism to another. So my advice, for peace of mind, set strong boundaries. And keep them. Do not let energy Vampires suck you dry. (Facebook is the home of energy Vampires, BTW.)

Scott Soliloquy: Boundaries I grew up a People Pleaser. Ingrained and automatic. I have worked hard on acting appropriately, not reacting inappropriately. I have a belief that we see a small percentage of ourselves and are pretty poor at evaluating our behavior, because, duh, I am acting perfectly fine 100% of the time. (Not) My dad always said, "Strong fences make good neighbours." Boundaries are important to me. And keeping them is not always easy. and often people do not appreciate it when I set one and hold to it. And naturally, this all leads up to today's story. I am volunteering at a small guesthouse complex in a small village about 25 km from the Dead Sea. It is a lovely place with an amazing owner, Noam. I am helping him with the regular maintenance as well as with some videos and web site improvements. A day or two ago, a female friend whom he hadn't seen in 7 years, stopped by. She ended up staying in a spare room. She was very interested in what I do and wanted to talk about making some courses. I felt like she was pushing in and starting to takeaway from my time with Noam and working on his projects - the reason I was here. The other characteristic I observed was she seemed to regularly start talking in the middle of my sentences. I began to feel a bit irritated. An hour ago, we were eating dinner and she began asking more questions, but not waiting to hear the answers. So I told her, I feel like you are not listening to me, because I don't believe people can listen and talk at the same time. You start talking in the middle of my sentences. She closed down completely then. I had kinda figured out we were not a good fit and did not want to work with her anyway. Once dinner was over, I excused myself and went to do some work on my computer. Half an hour later I received a relatively long message from her. I did not read it carefully. In my scanning I picked up the word: "bully" and some comment about shock and respect. So I deleted the half read message and blocked her. It is the first time I ever blocked someone who was like 6 feet away from me. LOL I went to show Noam some mockups of web sites for us to look at and decide upon. I mentioned to him my interaction with his long lost friend. We had spoken earlier in the day about her and he confirmed that my impressions were his. In fact, he appreciated that I brought it up as he was wondering if he was 'mean' for wanting her to move on. HIs response was supportive. He started laughing when I mentioned what a bully I was. We were outside and she returned from a walk. I said, hi. No response. I think she knew she was blocked... Before dinner she had a loooong argumentative conversation with another fellow here. The lesson here is you can engage in people or not. You normally do NOT have to. I prefer to engage with people who listen and consider my words as I listen and consider theirs. People who are closed minded, or set in their ways, are not worth the effort. It is like banging your head against a brick wall with 6 inch spikes embedded in it. There are three groups of people in the world: 1) Those who live and die by "A" 2) Those who live and die by "B" and 3) Those who are on the fence between "A" and "B" The people on the fence can be 'helped'. People do switch from "A" to "B", like St. Peter did (From persecutor to Christian evangelist). They tend to go from one extremism to another. So my advice, for peace of mind, set strong boundaries. And keep them. Do not let energy Vampires suck you dry. (Facebook is the home of energy Vampires, BTW.)
by Scott Paton

January 13, 2018 at 08:58AM
from Facebook
http://www.MySite.com