I need Help, Not another Adult to Chase!

Hello there, ledge walkers. How are you today?

I’ve had kind of a so-so weekend, and today I’m frustrated.

Not devastated. Not falling apart. Just frustrated and, quite frankly, angry.

Here’s the thing. I know I’m not perfect. Far from it.

I make mistakes. I procrastinate. There are things sitting on my own list that should have been done already. Sometimes I get myself moving and deal with them. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I tell myself, “I’ll do that tomorrow,” and tomorrow becomes three days from now.

I’m working on it.

That matters, because before I start pointing fingers at somebody else, I need to be willing to point one back at myself.

But there is also a difference between occasionally dropping the ball and making not doing something your normal way of operating.

That’s what has been getting under my skin.

When Asking Becomes Chasing

There are a few people in my life who seem to want to do less and less.

You ask them to do something.

Nothing.

You remind them.

Nothing.

You ask again.

Still nothing.

Eventually you’re no longer asking someone to help. You’ve taken on another job: managing the person who was supposed to be helping you.

And that’s exhausting.

I’ve been watching closely enough to realize that this isn’t necessarily about me, either. Other people ask some of these same individuals to do things, and those things don’t get done either.

So at some point I have to stop asking, “Why won’t they do this for me?”

The better question may be, “Why am I still expecting a different result from the same pattern?”

Two And A Half Years Is Not Procrastination

One particular task has been sitting there for about two and a half years.

Two and a half years.

It isn’t some massive undertaking. It isn’t something requiring six contractors, three government permits and an act of God.

It simply hasn’t been done.

At some point, “I’ll get around to it” stops being an explanation.

That’s where my frustration comes from.

I can understand being tired. I understand stress, distraction, procrastination, bad days and having other things going on in your life. Human beings are messy creatures.

But understanding why somebody struggles doesn’t magically make the consequences disappear.

Eventually somebody else ends up carrying what they didn’t.

Sometimes that somebody is me.

And Right Now, I Actually Need Help

This is probably the part bothering me most.

There are things around here that I need done that I cannot physically do by myself right now.

I’m not talking about wanting somebody to make my life easier while I sit around doing nothing.

I mean there are jobs that require another set of hands, another back or simply another physical body.

And I need that help.

That’s very different from wanting help.

When you’re already dealing with your own list of problems, responsibilities, bills, work and unfinished tasks, having to repeatedly chase somebody else to get one simple thing accomplished becomes another weight you’re carrying.

That’s when the anger starts creeping in.

“Please, just get up and do something.”

Yep. That’s the thought going through my head.

I’m not particularly proud of the frustration behind it, but I’m not going to pretend it isn’t there either.

The Part I Can Actually Control

Here’s where the Ledge tools have to come into this, because otherwise this is just me complaining on the internet.

I cannot make another adult care.

I cannot manufacture somebody else’s motivation.

I cannot spend my day reminding, encouraging, nagging, arguing and eventually doing the job myself while becoming increasingly angry about it.

Well, technically I can.

I’ve done it.

That’s part of the problem.

The thing I actually control is what I do when somebody repeatedly demonstrates that they are not going to follow through.

Maybe that means I stop building plans around promises that experience tells me probably won’t be kept.

Maybe it means separating the things that would be nice to have help with from the things I genuinely cannot accomplish without another person.

And maybe it means asking clearly once, following up once, and then making a decision instead of beginning another endless cycle of reminders.

Not as punishment.

Not as some dramatic declaration that I’m cutting everybody out of my life.

Simply because chasing people is work too.

And right now, I don’t have unlimited energy to spend doing it.

Today’s Next Move

So that’s probably my tool for today.

I’m going to look at what actually needs to be done and separate it into two piles.

Things I can do myself, even if they take me longer.

And things where I genuinely need another human being to help me.

Then I’ll deal with the second pile directly.

No vague “sometime we should do this.”

What needs doing?

Who is actually willing to help?

And when are we doing it?

Because I have enough things in my own life that I need to work on.

I don’t need to add “chasing grown adults” to the list.

Maybe that’s the lesson from this so-so weekend.

Sometimes using the tools isn’t about becoming more patient.

Sometimes it’s recognizing where your patience is being spent and deciding whether you’re getting anything useful back for it.

I’m still frustrated.

I’m still angry.

There are still things that need to get done.

But at least I know what part of this belongs to me.

The rest belongs to them.