This reminds me a lot of the posts by burnt out open source project maintainers, like the one about turning off github issues that was on the front page just recently, or one from a while ago about ignoring most github notifications and marking old repos as unmaintained.
Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
41–50 of 335 posts
Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
#42It's ok to be accommodating as long as you have learned to be introspective. We all have demands of our own time and money. Introspective accommodating people are able to help others in a generous way while protecting the time and resources they need to help themselves. It's a difficult balance to achieve. Through experience, I've come to believe that this holds true in long-term personal relationships, too. While ma…
I agree, I don't think it has to be an either-or type of thing. I started out being too accommodating but have gradually learned to say no more and more. Sometimes it surprises people who are used to you being overly accommodating, but if you have enough self-respect and respect your own time the surprise usually doesn't last and typically results in . Someone who is too used to you being accommodating might escalate the situation and try to challenge you but that hasn't happened to me.
My new formula is to be accommodating when it doesn't negatively affect me and if it does, make it clear that some request will be effort and I'll have to consider whether I can accommodate it (which assumes of course that it isn't an official duty). Its not about trying to force people to respect me, if I respect myself enough (for valid reasons, this doesn't excuse baseless bravado or anything) it doesn't really matter, I won't allow myself to be taken advantage of and generally that means the same thing. In a relationship (new or old) it can be as simple as when asked to do something that isn't something you would be expected to do just asking more questions about the thing. When exactly is it? How long is it going to take? You aren't being a dick by trying to factor some request into your own time, you have other things you want or need to do and 99% of the time people will respect that. Just following a request up with questions about the specifics of the request shows more self-respect that immediately being like "sure I can do that, when is it and where?", which says that you'll work around their request rather than the other way around.
I've even applied this to how I drive - I used to be much more concerned with people who were in a Great Hurry in the left lane, I would find a spot to get into the right lane even if I had to slow down to do so (usually getting me stuck behind someone who then somehow seems to be going 10mph slower than I even realized). I did this partly out of politeness and knowing how frustrating it can be to be stuck behind people, but a fair percentage of the time the person in a hurry is going 20mph+ over the speed limit and I'm probably already going 10-15 and I am passing people on the right at a fair clip and chances are there isn't even much space ahead to take up. I used to be stressed by these situations when I was less secure but now I'm not going to put myself out and dodge in and out of traffic for someone who is driving unreasonably and it doesn't stress me out to have someone raging behind me because chances are that person is going to be raging at someone no matter what, might as well be me. I'll get over for them when its safe and convenient and let them by but not at my own expense. I know this is kind of a trivial situation but it was kind of a big realization for me when I got over being stressed out by having other people be displeased with me.
Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
#43Saying "no" sometimes (genuinely, everyone has shit to do) is the best way to know for sure who really enjoys your company and who just keeps you near for the easy "yes" you always carry around.
[deleted]
Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
#44It's ok to be accommodating as long as you have learned to be introspective. We all have demands of our own time and money. Introspective accommodating people are able to help others in a generous way while protecting the time and resources they need to help themselves. It's a difficult balance to achieve. Through experience, I've come to believe that this holds true in long-term personal relationships, too. While ma…
You want to compromise on the stuff that other people find important and hold fast on the stuff that you find important. Goes for both relationships, friends, teammates, and business associates.
Most people come into the world assuming that their desires are everybody's desires. We live life by the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you." This obscures that there's often a wide variety in the things we would like others to do unto us, and that assuming everybody wants what you wants often leads us to do exactly what they don't want.
It was a revelation when my therapist told me "You need to show love in the ways that other people want to receive it, not the way you want to send it." It hadn't really occurred to me before then that things I considered really inconsequential - checking if she got home okay, or leaving the porch light on for her at night - might really matter to my girlfriend (now wife), or that things that I considered really important - like listening to my latest theory on reality, or showing enthusiasm when I show her my latest product demo - might be considered inconsequential by her.
Many people have this intuitive idea that service & favors are a zero-sum game, but in actuality, some actions cost you a lot less than the recipient benefits from them, and some cost you a lot more than the recipient cares. It makes a lot of sense to perform favors that are cheap for you but benefit the recipient a lot. It's on you to figure out how much the recipient cares and how much time & energy you can spare for them.
Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
#45>Read the life of a great scientist like Agassiz. Was he forever at the world’s beck and call? Not for a single day.
Agassiz refers to "Louis Agassiz" a creationist scientific racist that believed the races had been created by God in separate events. Not the best example to use.
Edit: He believed this in the late 1800 and the author of the submitted article apparently considered him a "great scientist" as late as 1922.
Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
#46>Three things were very clear to me in that night of self-examination five years ago. First: A man’s chief loyalty must be to the woman who has joined her life to his; to the children who call him father; and to the business which feeds and clothes and houses them all No. A man’s chief loyalty must be to himself. This guy didn't take the lesson to its final conclusion.
The man in this story is the central nervous system for a family unit. The wife and children are, in essence, an extension of himself. He knows his genes will die, but a portion his human body, in both flesh and spirit, will live on in his children. Thus, in order to promote self-preservation, his wife and children must be attended to. This is biological reality.
Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
#47As someone who trends towards heavily accommodating, I often seem to find my actions that I judge as selfish or arrogant are the ones that I get respect for. Definitely a phenomena I don't understand, but its real so it should be very valuable to learn where to draw the line.
Put it in the context of dominance and submission among apes and it becomes clear. The one who does nice things for you is displaying a submissive posture and trying to win your favor. They are probably your social inferior: beneath you in the hierarchy, or at most, a peer. The one who doesn't care about you and does what he wants, shows that he's above you in the hierarchy. And some people just can't resist their internal ape tendency to think "wow that's sure an impressive alpha ape right there." But some, who consider themselves alphas themselves, will take it as a challenge. Etc. etc. etc. All somewhat dreary thoughts in the light of soaring techno-optimist talk about the glory of the human spirit, but I think we're all still apes and I've said so, enough times on HN, that I'm at risk of becoming known as the "ape guy."
Manners are in fact detailed prescriptive means & methods for being submissive, or rather for sending submissive signals, as the default behavior in societies where there are more humans living together than normal, i.e. anytime after 1800 when the population really started to shoot upward and to urbanize. It ends up being very practical to train people to be submissive in an urban industrial society, because if you have a thousand supposed self-declared alpha-apes constantly fighting it out "out there," things become a mess very quickly.
Edit: to the respondents, I am intentionally keeping morality out of it (decency and so forth), because a strictly moralistic right/wrong judgment-based view didn't seem to be enhancing the parent's understanding. But dominance & submission, like morality, is just another narrow rubric for viewing the world, doesn't describe the whole world, and isn't the only way of describing the world. So it's best not to take it too far beyond a blurry big-picture view!
Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
#48This was really good and most of it held up really well. I too was far too accommodating and when I thought I had it licked I got brought back in. It's a tough thing to avoid. In some ways you want to help everyone. In other ways that hurts yourself and, depending on how bad it is, maybe your family or career (like in this story).
People should certainly try not to be accommodating to everyone. It's something I still struggle with but no longer being a part of a start-up with unrealistic expecations has certainly toned down this significantly for me.
A little here and there can still be good, however.
Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
#49I'm going through this change right now. Some words of hard earned "wisdom": make sure the pendulum doesn't swing too far out in the other direction. I went from being an accommodating person to an intense asshole - trying to dial it back now but it's hard, especially when you notice that people definitely respect you more for good or bad reasons when you're like that. Take it too far though, and it will of course go…
the trick is to finely calibrate your bullshit meter through life experiences. what people tend to respect innately is a genuinely nice person who can instantly turn into a no-holds-barred asshole if bad intentions are detected.
[deleted]
Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)
#50Couldn't help but recall Peter Thiel's ideas on competition and why it's good business to avoid it. The author's father was stuck in competition and it drove a lot of what he did.
The idea in the article was that the competition was "imaginary" as in the salesman across the street didn't bother to try to do everything for everyone correct? Maybe the lesson is more about ignoring what others might be doing and focusing on what you need to do for success yourself. EDIT: mistake was as suggested below.
"lesson is more about what others might be doing"
You mean less, right?