We are in the middle of what has been designated “The Great Resignation.” What that means/what that entails has been the mass exodus of workers from the corporate world. Why are people leaving in droves? In short, they’re realizing their worth. The silver lining that has shown through the cloud of the pandemic has been that people have grown sick of being treated like cogs in the corporate machine. They have looked at their lives, looked at the impending mortality presented by a global pandemic as well as the ever escalating climate emergency, & thought “WTF am I doing with my life?!” It’s hard sending yet another BS work email on the behalf of someone who doesn’t care a lick about you or your well-being while the world literally burns outside your door. People are realizing that for so long we have lived at the whims of our corporate overlords & that life isn’t meant to be lived under lifeless florescence of a forty+ hour work week for not even close to a livable wage.
This all boils down to the fact that for so long we as workers were encouraged to compromise ourselves for the sake of our jobs. We have been asked to overstep the outlined terms of our employment & go above & beyond what exactly we were hired to do. It is not only the norm but the expectation. If you aren’t sacrificing your time, your health (mental or physical), your desires for the sake of some company that wouldn’t do the same for you, you’re a bad employee & people are sick of it & if I’m being honest, I’m so happy that their sick of it.
Living your life slowly working your way into the husk of a human is no way to live. We are meant to explore, to socialize, to connect with each other, with our planet. We are meant to run & breathe & be free, not to be chained to a desk for the majority of our lives. This is where boundaries come in. We as a society are in a pivotal moment where we can renegotiate the societal contracts that have minimized so many of us for so long. We are in a position to demand the bare minimum things that we should have been receiving all along but that mentality doesn’t need to be limited to our work lives.
So many friends of mine who come to me for advice could use a healthy reestablishment of their boundaries. Whether it’s familial, interpersonal, whatever, so many people I know don’t know how to tell the people in their lives “no.” It may stem from fears of abandonment or rejection but we are often far too afraid to “offend” the people closest to us. Here’s a little secret, if you can’t be honest with the people close to you about the things that harm you or diminish your quality of life then you’re not that close to them. Those who love & respect you will hear you out & put in effort to honor the boundaries you’ve set. You should be able to sit down with your friends & family members & have a conversation about something they’ve done that harmed you or made you uncomfortable & have them hear you & I mean really hear you, not just passively listen. You should be able to do all of this before these things happen as well. Your loved ones should honor & respect your predetermined boundaries.
Boundaries are healthy, they allow us to assert our health & wellbeing into our lives & keep us in check. I think we all need a healthy dose of them from time to time but I also think it’s okay for you to constantly be pushing your own boundaries to expand your realm of comfort. As Elizabeth Gilbert says “fear is boring” it is a boring emotion to have because it always leads you to the same place of nothing. Respect your own boundaries that keep you happy but don’t be afraid to tweak them from time to time. Also don’t expect people to automatically know where your lines in your sand are set, communicate.
As always I hope you all have a fantastic week! Shout out to Jenna Vitolo for this week’s prompt, it’s always a fun exercise for me to get ideas listed at me & see what sends my brain into a tangent, this week it was this, next week it’ll definitely be something different! Keep up the good work & stay healthy out there!
-C