Take me as I am or watch me as I go

I am what I am and not the one that you want me to be. If you want to politely inform that their efforts are unwelcome or inefficient, begin with a positive. They think they’re helping. They think they’re being nice. Thank them for wanting to be nice, then explain why their niceness is not helpful. “Thanks for trying to help! Unfortunately, when you shout encouragement at me, it’s distracting, especially when I need to focus on what I’m doing.”“Thanks for tidying up, but I had all those things out for a reason. I’m going to find them now, and return them to where they were.”

But if they’re being obstructive and you need them to stop, that’s a little harder to do graciously. I still think it’s best to thank them for their good intentions, but you’re going to have to be direct, firm and very, very clear about what you need them to do right away. “Thanks for the support, but please stop shouting at me. I need quiet in order to do this.”“Thanks for wanting to be helpful, but please don’t move my possessions again. I need you to respect my area. If something of mine is in your way, tell me and I will move it for you myself.”

It’s your problem!” is rude. You risk implying that you’re too important to deal with this, or you don’t care enough to help them, or you think they deserve the problem because of whatever they did to cause it, or something else dismissive and judge any of which is likely to cause resentment. But you could say the same thing gently, like, “I understand the problem, but I’m afraid I can’t help you. You’ll have to solve this on your own.” That’s gracious and much less likely to cause resentment."

?I think the answer resides in the concepts of responsibility and empathy. If you are responsible for something, and it requires attention, it’s inappropriate to say “not my problem”. Because if you are responsible for it, it is your problem. But if you are not responsible for something, you can legitimately say that it’s not your problem. However, this ignores the concept of empathy. If someone else has a problem, and they are sharing it with you, empathy requires us to listen to the person, understand the problem, and try to help where we can.

Of course, no one is obliged to be empathetic. It’s a personal choice. But if you consider empathy to be a valuable tool in your life toolkit, then certainly “it’s not my problem” isn’t really compatible with an empathetic disposition. More often than not, it has a positive implication, often implying that you are seen as one of the most accomplished people in your field. However, it need not necessarily be positive. I used to hear this statement from teachers a lot when I was in junior high school and high school.

In my case invariably it meant that a previous teacher had told a new teacher that I was difficult and a chronic under achiever (in their opinion). I hated that because it made it very difficult to get off on good footing as teachers were already looking for a reason to remonstrate me before I had even done anything wrong. Their doing so would often result in my objections, which often enough led the whole thing to become a self fulfilling prophecy. Cheers!