We’ve all been there. A friend of ours calls us and desperately and needs us to drop everything we’re doing because she got into a fight with her boyfriend and is really upset. So, being the good friend that we are, we drop everything and go and help her. The only problem is, is that this isn’t the first time this has happened. In fact, this happened last week…and the week before that and well, come to think of it yesterday, too.
Sure, it’s great to lend a helping hand to a friend in need. After all, that’s what friends are for.
But, there comes a time when we have to stop doing things for others and take some time to do things for ourselves. If we always drop the things we want to do to help our friends, we will end up resenting them, which could eventually end the friendship.
While helping our friends is great, there definitely needs to be some kind of balance otherwise we are bound to be tired, irritable, frazzled and some studies have found that we will be more likely to have low self esteem.
When we are constantly busy pleasing others, we are less likely to think about our own personal needs, which leads to us skipping things that are important like going to the plex, or just having some quality “me” time. Also, since we are in college it is not unlikely that our friends will need our help late at night, which will lead to us not getting enough sleep at night.
Sleep depravation might seem commonplace in college. After all, we aren’t really college students until we’ve pulled an all nighter. Losing even a couple of hours of sleep every night has huge negative impacts on our health and has even been linked to lower GPAs.
So, since being a people pleaser all the time is not a good thing, yet we clearly still want to help our friends, how do we go about balancing the two without seeming like an ambivalent friend?
It’s easy!
In fact, all you have to do is just explain to your friend the next time she is having a crisis that you would be more than happy to help her right after you finish writing this paper; or if she calls you late at night, tell her that unless it’s a real emergency you’d love to help her in the morning over coffee.
By offering your help and support in the future will not only show her that you do care, but that you have to take care of yourself too otherwise you will not be able to adequately help her through whatever it is she is dealing with.
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