The other day my neighbor complained to me that her mother called her at work and asked her to drop off some Band Aids on her way home.
“Was she bleeding?” I asked.
Shaking her head my neighbor said, “Just her way of getting me to stop by to see her. She’s stuck at home taking care of Dad who had back surgery. I’m working 12 hours a day and she wants me to drop everything. She could’ve called one of her neighbors. But she called me instead!”
“Don’t you want to check up on your dad?” I asked.
“I would if my mom wasn’t such a control freak. I used to see her every day when we worked in the same office. Now that I work some place else, I can’t be with her as much as she wants. If I stop by for a few minutes, she finds an excuse to get me to stay longer. So now I don’t bother at all.”
Later that afternoon, my cousin complained to me that her mother is moving to Florida.
“I don’t know what I’ll do with her so far away,” my niece said. “She’s so much fun to be with! We get together a few times a week.”
What can you learn from this?
You can’t always have what you want.
There are 6 important takeaways for you to learn about interpersonal relationships that will help you with family and friends and at work.
- Change isn’t easy to accept.
- When we raise our kids to become independent, we have to let them be independent.
- We have to understand that other people have their own boundaries and their own lives.
- Not everyone does things the way you want or even what you want.
- There are a lot of ways to look at the same situation.
- Family and friends are part of who you are. Life is too short to lose the connection.
All the best,
BJ
P.S. I help parents who want to have enviable relationships with their adult children.
P.P.S. I help small businesses that want to have enviable relationships with their employees and among their employees.
P.P.P.S. Please send me your input concerning the 2 mother/daughter situations mentioned above.