My new cubicle arrangement has proven to be very effective at allowing me to discourage talkers. If someone walks up and I feel like engaging in conversation, I turn around to face him or her. If I don’t feel like talking (or, more accurately, listening), I simply don’t turn around. Even our most clueless guy gets THAT hint and goes away pretty quickly if I don’t turn around. I’m really happy with this but being the nice person that I am, I sometimes feel a bit badly about “rejecting” most of the talkers most of the time.
But I realized something this morning. I’m going to be fifty years old next summer. I have a full time job, a house, a partner, a family. I’m taking a full course load at college, working my butt off. I only have a finite amount of energy on any given day, and I need it for the things I choose to do. If I allow every Tom, Dick, and Harry who wants to talk at me during the day to siphon off my energy, I don’t have any left when I go home, and that’s a bad thing. I have every right to choose which conversations I’ll have and which I won’t (necessary work conversations excepted, of course). I am not being mean to others by declining to accommodate them every time they want to talk to me. I am being kind to myself and to my loved ones by conserving my precious energy for the things that really matter to me.
There are enough things in life that we have to do - we don’t have to let other people drain us of energy just because they feel like talking. It really does cost me a lot to pretend polite interest when someone is going on about something I don’t care about. It’s better to just refuse to turn around. The talker can easily find someone else to talk to, and I get to be left alone.
So there is my “sermon” for today!
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You’re such a nice person, and I know it is hard to keep your back turned and maybe make them feel unwanted, but you are so right - you have to choose to spend your energy on your loved ones and yourself instead of letting these folks squander your energy. I’ve heard that many times about time, too. If we just let everyone grab and push and claim our time, we can’t deliberately select what to spend it on.