Taking people for granted?

Another comment by Michael prompts yet another post-length response.

Michael wrote:

"There is a dynamic where a person who is talented is seen as things being easy."

Yes. I think people *do* take advantage. In fact, I know *I* have taken advantage - I've assumed that, for example, because my little brother was big and strong and more able to do tasks requiring muscles and stamina than I am, that he actually *liked* doing those things.

But at some point he pointed out that *everybody* asks him for help *all the time* because he's such a big guy. He gets tired of being taken for granted.

In fact, I just heard a while back that he'd had back surgery - had a disk fused, ack! Noooo, little brother! Bad surgery, bad surgery! But - if to 'save face' and feel useful and valuable in the family and live up to everybody's - seeming? - expectations, you have to sacrifice your*self* in the process - well, maybe the body finally screams out in some way that a person simply *can't* ignore, so that they don't have to feel actively 'responsible' for letting others down? And so they save face. Dang, *this* one shouldbe a post of its own, too.

Thinking out loud, what I’m saying is, it was *easier* for him to basically destroy his back than to admit that he couldn’t bear (or carry) the burden that people were trying to lay on him.

Perhaps it’s a shame thing, as in, “If I don’t do what they expect, they won’t like me”?

Or maybe it’s a ‘need to be needed’ thing.

Or possibly a little of both. Who knows.

In any case, there seems to be a pretty direct connection.

The sad thing, and the thing that *angers* me about this stuff, is that, well, in my *brother’s* case – I suspect he *still* doesn’t know why his back went out. And he doesn’t know that he needs to learn to say ‘no’, and that it’s *ok* to say no. Jeez, this comes back to the whole Ask/Guess conundrum! Hm. How did I get to be the only ‘Asker’ in my family? Or, maybe my dad was, too. Or maybe it’s situational as much as a temperament thing. Or maybe it ties in with power and a person’s innate, natural levels of aggression?

Gah. Got to just pin this one up and move on for now. Layers, baby, cycles, lather, rinse, repeat. :-)