KTAB – 3/7/07 I'm Responsible For What's On My "Property"

Another way of looking at boundary problems is seeing them as a failure to recognize or accept responsibility for what lies within my boundaries, what's within my control. Boundaries designate where one thing ends and another begins. Physically, my skin is the boundary between what's me and what's not me. But there's more to me than what meets the eye. What I think and believe is me, what I feel and care about is me, what I choose to do with myself and my time and my money is also me. I'm not responsible for what you do or say or think or how you spend your time and money. I'm only responsible for what I do and say and think, what is actually or essentially under my control. If I don't understand or accept that, then I either won't be taking care of my own business or I'll be trying to take care of yours.

I use the word "essentially" because I really am responsible for what I do with my time and energies, even if I let someone else control them. You've probably known people who, if you start a conversation with them, will talk and talk and if you let them they will make you late for an appointment or picking up your kids or getting your homework done. You may get mad at them for making you late, but the choice about whether you ended the conversation in time to make it to the bank before it closed was essentially yours. So there are both people who overstep their bounds, their boundaries, who try to control what doesn't belong to them, and people who let them, who don't take responsibility for what they do, or could if they chose, have control of.

Some people don't take control of what is within their boundaries because they don't know or understand where the boundaries are, or they don't think they have the right or power to enforce them. Others don't because they've let someone else have the control, out of fear of making a mistake or making someone mad or some other reason. "I can't do that -- I'll hurt their feelings and they won't be my friend anymore." And others don't because they just don't care -- it's not important to them to be responsible.

More to come . . .