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Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

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Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#181

Post by averagewall »

skosch wrote: post #97
watwut wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I found it oftentimes easier to say no without saying reason. The issue for me was that when I state reason, people wanted to negotiate, attempted to "advise" me on how organize my time better and so on and so forth. Overtime (at least against many people) I found it much less draining to simply insist on politely stated no without further explanation.

Counterpoint: when people do this to me, I instinctively assume that the true reason is laziness. On top of that, I feel alienated – what, you think you're so important that you can brush me off just like that, and I'm not even worthy being given a reason? Be careful with this one. It's very much possible to state a reason and still express that you won't change your mind on the matter. Although it is more effort, yo…

I don't like giving reasons anymore because they're usually a lie. I don't write up a list of pros and cons and find there's only one con and that's the one true reason for not wanting to do it. Reasons are complicated and hard to know yourself. By saying it, the other person can find a way to show it's not true, or get another reason out of you which shows your first reason wasn't complete. People have sometimes used my reasons against me - "remember that time you said you did X because of Y?, Now you're saying Y wasn't true, so you were lying back then!" They miss the fact that there are multiple reasons, and they aren't binary ("I want to" and "I don't want to" can both be true at the same time!) and I miss the fact that I cherry pick reasons that seem placating and omit the reasons that might seem rude.

It's not rudeness, but honesty that makes me dislike giving reasons. Sometimes I give the reason "I don't want to" which seems about as correct as I can understand.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#182

Post by D-Coder »

minikites wrote: post #52
nostrademons wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

>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." I'm curious, was it along the lines of this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Love_Languages

Great little book. A friend gave me a copy... and I bought a copy for another friend.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#183

Post by toomuchtodo »

unfamiliar wrote: post #16
will_pseudonym wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a great 5 minute clip of the clinical psychologist and professor Dr. Jordan B. Peterson talking about the dangers of being too agreeable: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVMvQhxN_M8

His entire lecture series, which is available on his youtube channel, is absolutely fantastic and worth every minute. It is probably one of the most engaging and enlightening bodies of work I have experienced in any format.

Just wanted to say thank you for this. I've already watched several of his videos this evening and started a monthly Patreon donation. So good!

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#184

Post by Bakary »

manmal wrote: post #91

For anybody learning to say "no" currently - learn to say "no" gently and kindly. I'm quite bad at this myself. I let people impose stuff on me, and once I have had enough, I have a very rude way of telling people off. One reason for this rudeness is a fear that I will lose something when declining (e.g. a relationship or money), so I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place - I don't want to help, but I feel I sho…

One method I found works disturbingly well is to have a busy life or cultivate the appearance of a busy life. It's counter-intuitive for some and obvious for others, but people will value you more if you are less available whereas they will treat your time with increasing contempt if you can be reached and interrupted easily.

With this reputation in place, people are much less likely to try to trick you into doing what they want, and more likely to try to get you to do things with them.

You have to be a little careful though. If you don't have much social capital to begin with, it could backfire into being ignored altogether. If you overdo it, it may also be counterproductive.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#186

Post by throwanem »

ericd wrote: post #170
throwanem wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Scopes monkey trial was quite a long time ago indeed. If a peaceful modus vivendi were the goal, one might reasonably imagine that enforcement efforts, whether legal, judicial, or cultural, would end when teaching the theory and evidence of human evolution ceased to be illegal. The attempt to dictate that that, and nothing else, be permissible - utterly without regard, in this nation of better than a quarter bill…

Sure thing, thanks for responding civilly. The thing with what you seem to be saying (that the science camp is trying to drive religion out of schools despite their supposed adherence to "live and let live") is that public schools are a state institution, and separation of church and state is also incredibly important. You're perfectly free to set up religious schools (which exist), and also to home school your child…

I don't really think that either of us is going to convince the other on any subject of import; we just don't share enough priors - for example, I doubt you are very susceptible to conviction on the point of modern progressivism as an inherently corrupt Christian heresy, and while I did once share the same faith you expound here, it would take a book to explain how and why I ceased to do so. That book actually has been written - and in a pleasantly engaging and discursive style, yet - but it would be astonishingly presumptuous of me to require such a hefty prerequisite for mere conversation, and I will not do so.

I will, though, note that it's curious how you talk about public schools as though they were paid for with federal money - this being the usual meaning with which the phrase "public money", in this connection, is used. By the Department of Education's own accounting [1], the proportion of primary and secondary public school funding which originates in the federal purse is approximately eight percent.

Yet the federal regulatory apparatus insists on an approximately one hundred percent share of control over how all of these public schools, even the vast majority for which it does not pay, must operate. This is a remarkable disparity! In any other context, its mere existence, to say nothing of the desirability of its being suffered to continue, would require considerable justification. Perhaps I am a fool to wonder what makes this context so unique.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#187

Post by Bakary »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #173
astockwell wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, as Mark Manson puts it[1]: "For a relationship to be healthy, both parties need to be able to both give and receive rejection". Eye-opening for me, and explained many of the unhealthy relationships in my life (including employee-employer dynamics). [1] https://markmanson.net/books/subtle-art (quasi-NSFW)

I am at work, but I don't give a fuck. This is the best thing I've read for a long time: "Because when we give too many fucks, when we choose to give a fuck about everything, then we feel as though we are perpetually entitled to feel comfortable and happy at all times, that’s when life fucks us." [1] 1. https://markmanson.net/not-giving-a-fuck

Isn't that just repackaged Stoicism?

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#188

Post by Bakary »

77pt77 wrote: post #13

> “You are thirty-five years old,” I said to myself. “More than half of your life has already been spent. Well, the age of the document is showing.

How many years are really worth it, though? Is an extra 20 years of miserable old age worth 5 years of youth? I'm not wholly certain that's the case.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#189

Post by BrailleHunting »

Bakary wrote: post #184
manmal wrote: post #91

For anybody learning to say "no" currently - learn to say "no" gently and kindly. I'm quite bad at this myself. I let people impose stuff on me, and once I have had enough, I have a very rude way of telling people off. One reason for this rudeness is a fear that I will lose something when declining (e.g. a relationship or money), so I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place - I don't want to help, but I feel I sho…

One method I found works disturbingly well is to have a busy life or cultivate the appearance of a busy life. It's counter-intuitive for some and obvious for others, but people will value you more if you are less available whereas they will treat your time with increasing contempt if you can be reached and interrupted easily. With this reputation in place, people are much less likely to try to trick you into doing wh…

It's an incomplete charade. Feel free to wear noise-canceling headphones, sunglasses and a hat and close the door, the needy jerks will still suckle attention for their time-sucking, futility from all directions... the Mormons, Amway distributors, recruiters, parties, the help me move a couch, help me do this and that, on and on.

It's better to be a "grayman:" blend-in by being as boring, generic and forgetable as possible. Disappear, not seek to social climb, because that will only attract different sorts of "stalkers" whom also will have demands.

Re: Why I Quit Being So Accommodating (1922)

#190

Post by JacobAldridge »

StavrosK wrote: post #155
lomnakkus wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm off my rocker, but isn't this exactly what "white lies"[1] were invented for? You don't actually always have to be 100% truthful with everyone. (That will also serve you badly in other social situations, BTW.) [1] Point being that even if people eventually find out that you did tell them a "white lie", they'll actually usually be very understanding because that's the societal norm and they realize that you…

I just say "ooohhh, I'd love to, but I have an excuse :(". Most people don't get it, but they're confused long enough for me to escape.

My current go-to is "I'd love to, but I can't because I'm folding t-shirts at that time". Humorous rejection for those who get it, passes the photocopier 'because' test which actually suffices for many, and achieves your confusion/escape route for most of the rest!
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