The secret to having a great friendship, is to not make your problems, theirs.
The secret of having great friendship is to tell your friend about your life but don’t expect more than listening and to ask your friend about their life and try to help them the best of your ability.
Doesn’t sound like a friendship to me. More like an acquaintance.
I want to know what’s up in my friends lives. I want them to tell me if they’ve got problems. I love them. I want to be there for them, and I want them to listen to me if I need it once. Otherwise, what’s the point?
I’m with you. Also, it’s not clear to me why people think listening to your friends means you suddenly are responsible for their problems. You don’t have to take on their burden, but you can listen, maybe offer advice, and empathize. You don’t need to solve their problem.
Instructions unclear, I now have a crippling fear of opening up to everyone about anything
Haha me too thanks
having good enough self awareness to keep self persevere
That’s not good to hear. Encourage your friends to share their small grievances before it gets too bad. Preventive measures and all that.
My answer is usually “I could complain, but nobody likes a whiner”.
But that’s you essentially letting them know they should never confide in you… Doesn’t seem very friendly.
Well, it’s not said to friends. Truth is that it usually ends up in a real conversation rather than the empty exchange that’s typical when someone asks “how are you?” as a habit.
It started as just a self deprecating joke, but it turns out that a little honesty about how we tend to only ask that when we want a short and positive answer makes people break out of that way of thinking. Truth is, most people that ask that kind of question don’t want an honest answer. It’s just a social nicety.
Haha. This hits home. I just got an urgent issue for a customer I can’t solve and the only people who can are on holiday, so I’ll be looking for the answer from now (afternoon) till long after 2am this night, and I won’t be paid for that time either.
But “making it someone else’s problem” is… heavily discouraged, shall we say, and since I don’t immediately fancy homelessness…
I don’t know your situation, but my rule of thumb after having burned myself out is that if I’m not being paid for the time I’m not taking that time.
I wholeheartedly agree but I can’t dodge this since I’m literally the only person available for the rest of this week…
You’re enabling your boss’ bad behavior. At some point it stops being their fault.
Then tell whoever pays you to do so or figure it out themselves. That’s kind of the whole deal with hiring people to do work for you. Unless you’re salaried.
My go-to lately has been “I’m living the dream, one nightmare at a time.”
I wish my friends would tell me about the little things. It actually helps me deal with things as well, since odds are its something we all struggle with one way or another and talking through it with them helps me sort it out too.
Too bad we are all so worried about making things other people’s problems when we could tackle this stuff together
