When Being Easy Ain't Easy
Why your compromising is leaving you constantly compromised
Hospitable, gracious women are easy hostesses.
But is the office and every part of your personal life really the best place to be a hostess?
“She's just so easy to work with."
If you've ever heard that said about you, I bet it made you smile. Really who has a prettier smile than you. After all, it sounds like a compliment.
Nobody should be purposefully difficult. Nobody dreams of being that person who drains the room, prolongs the discussion, or starts the argument. It’s just poor manners. Right???
So you wear that compliment like the Gold Star Girl you are.
Easy.
Dependable.
Flexible.
A team player.
Before long you're so easy to work with that everybody wants to work with you. For you? You for them?
The boss needs one more favor.
A colleague needs you to fix a presentation.
The PTO needs a volunteer.
Your family assumes you'll host Thanksgiving because, well...you always do.
You become the woman everyone can count on. Honestly it feels like heaven, doesn't it? Until it doesn’t. Until you realize your car’s about to run out of gas in the middle of How Did Get Here Ville.
Here's the funny thing about women like us. We don't wake up one morning and decide to easily disappear.
We disappear a teaspoon at a time.
It’s because we just said one too many yeses, we didn't really mean.
We stuffed down one too many opinions because it really didn’t seem worth the fight.
We gave away one too many weekends because everyone else's emergency suddenly becomes our own.
It's never dramatic.
It's just a Tuesday, girl!
But after enough Tuesdays, you look around at the life you've built and wonder…
“Why am I the only one who's so gosh dang tired, and fit to be tied?”
Me and every woman I know could can solve just about any problem handed us. At work. And at home. That’s how amazing we are. Obviously you’re included in this group!
Family, friends and colleagues admire us. They depend on us.
But they also expect us to keep doing it. (I love my husband to bits. He is the most capable decision oriented person at work. And he’s easy on the eyes. But come evening, it seems the threshold that is our front door is the portal to his amnesia).
Now before you start canceling plans and practicing the word “No" in the bathroom mirror (or better yet putting up a post-it note with the word) while still trying to look cute and friendly, let's clear something up.
Being kind isn't the problem.
Being generous isn't the problem.
Being reliable isn't the problem.
The problem is believing your value depends on how comfortable you can make everybody else.
That’s so good, I need to say that again!!!
The problem is believing your value depends on how comfortable you can make everybody else.
There’s nothing worse then a proud high maintenance women, living in a low maintenance mode!!
Don't complain.
Don't ask for too much.
Handle it yourself.
Smile.
Be grateful.
Be easy (as in, can be rolled over).
That may have helped us build careers, earn trust, and become the women people admire.
But there's a difference between being easy to work with and being easy to overlook.
There's a difference between serving others and being a servant to others.
There’s a difference between being compassionate and carrying the other person’s luggage.
Here is what you can and need to do…
You can be collaborative without losing your voice.
You can be generous without being sacrificial.
You can be the woman YOU admire first, before and despite what other people think.
Because here's the truth nobody hands out with those gold stars:
The people who truly love and respect you don't need you to be smaller.
They don't want you to say “yes” when your heart is screaming “no.”
They don't need you to earn your place at a table you’ve already been invited to.
So the next time someone tells you you're "so easy to work with,"
Smile, be polite and say thank you (because good manners separates us from the animals).
All the while thinking, “We’ll have to see about that.”