Not my circus, not my monkey

A university friend of mine, Ian Goldberg, used this little heuristic to determine whether something was his problem:

Not my fault?
Not my responsibility?
Not my problem.

It was exactly what undergrad-me needed, because undergrad-me made very few distinctions between my own responsibilities and those of others: I just felt responsible for everything. And everybody. And especially everybody's feelings.

That was not a great way to live. I was tired and stressed and felt bad all the time, because it turns out you can't actually take responsibility for everybody's feelings. And the reason why is that you can't control how other people feel.

You can't control how other people feel

Alfred Adler, philosopher and psychologist, peer of Carl Jung, and source of many of the ideas which underpin coaching and cognitive-behavioural therapy, called the idea of removing yourself from responsibility for other people's feelings separation of tasks.

Separation of tasks sounds pretty straightforward, but it means you have to leave a lot on the table: whether people like you; whether people agree with you; whether your kid is happy when they take out the trash; what the neighbours think; whether the person you love loves you back.

And while you're doing your best to take responsibility for your own stuff, other people will try to make their work into your work.

A popular tactic of trolls, for example, is to demand that people explain and justify themselves. The troll says it's the other person's responsibility to convince, to pursuade. Not because the troll is planning to consider the evidence and possibly change their mind, of course: it's just a diversionary tactic, a way to keep you busy instead of doing your real work.

Little kids are great at this too (not that I'm equating little kids and trolls...) — they have a bloodhound's nose for cracks in your resolve when it comes to responsibility. If you let down your guard, before you know it you're carrying their backpack, intervening with their teacher about marks, and explaining to their taekwondo master why they didn't practice.

Trying to pass responsibility to someone else is often about power. For trolls, it’s the power to waste your time and energy. For little kids, it’s the power they have to get you to do something, even though they are very small and you are the grown-up.

Incidentally, Alyson Schafer was profoundly influential in my understanding of Adlerian psychology and parenting. She addresses lots of questions about division of responsibilities in the family context in her writing.

But how?

Letting go of how people feel, and how they feel about you, your children, your work, is not easy. It's really hard.

In order to untether yourself from all that stuff, you have to anchor yourself to what you can control: a grounded sense of your own worth, your values and needs. It takes self-knowledge and inner work, as well as persistence and courage.

I know, because I’ve been working on it since I was an undergraduate. I’m still working on it.

But it’s worth the effort to be free of the constant tug of other people's priorities and values, because it means you can become fully yourself — and that is your most important task.

Ask yourself

Is there some area in which you are taking on someone else's task? Are you shouldering the burden of needing someone's approval? Are you taking responsibility for someone's behaviour, or someone's happiness?

What will it take for you to disengage from that task and return it to the other person?