There is no Line

 This is another post inspired by Sunny.  In a recent post, she said that she's dazed and confused (her words, not mine) over choices that people around her are making.  It's quite apparent that she sees poor outcomes in a few different situations, and she seems to be tying herself in knots over what to do.  She ends her post by observing "I think I might be worrying too much about other peoples problems and just making myself miserable in the process. But that's what you do when you care about someone, isn't it?" Well, yes and no.

I'm in a similar place with my family.  My ex lives with my older daughter, son-in-law and grandson, and there's a bit of drama in their world at the moment.  I'm not going to go into the specifics of the issue, but it is a real problem.  Unfortunately, nobody is tackling the issue head on.  Grandson is talking to wifey and me about it.  Ex is talking with my younger daughter about it.  Older daughter has no idea the problem exists.  Son-in-law caused the problem and grandson observed the problem.  Grandson came to wifey and me, and we said tell mom.  Instead he talked to ex.

This is going to turn into a bit of a shitstorm when everything comes out.  Am I concerned?  Yep.  Have people come to me for advice?  Yep.  Have they followed it?  Nope.  I see the problem.  I see there's gonna be a shitstorm.  Son-in-law is gonna be labeled a bad guy over it, but I kind of get where he's coming from.  It's just a bad scene where there is no good answer.

Yeah.  But unlike Sunny, I'm not going to spend a ton of time and energy worrying about or trying to control the situation, because at the end of the day... 1) I did not create the situation.  2) I am not involved in the situation.  3) I cannot predict, control or influence the behavior of anyone involved in the situation.  In other words, there is zero I can do.  If I were to try to insert myself into the situation, the most likely result is that I'd be the bad guy for butting in.

A lot of people would react to this by looking for that line where they should insert themselves into the situation vs. butting out.  They'll wonder where is the line?  The thing is, there's no cookie cutter answer.  It's the case here, and it's the case in most of life.  Over the years, I spent a lot of time and energy wondering this, and I finally discovered the answer.  There is no line.  It's only judgement and experience.

That same judgement and experience tells me that humans, by and large, tend to significantly overestimate the amount of influence they have over others.  We also tend to overestimate the extent to which our input is welcome.  As a result, I try to not provide input unless I'm asked.  If I'm compelled to give input without invitation, I have a general rule that I ask if the other person is interested in my take.  If they say yes, I will proceed.  However, any time I give advice -- even if explicitly asked -- I work with the understanding that most of the time, people are looking for someone to validate a conclusion they've already made.  This means that our advice and input is at best disregarded and at worst invokes anger, unless the advice matches what the other person already intends to do.

So, when it comes to interpersonal relationships, the older I get, the less frequently I give advice.  Instead, I try to serve as a sounding board.  I don't do this because I'm worried about crossing a line.  Like I said earlier, there is no line.  There's a fence, and we as humans are neighbors talking to one another over that fence.  Unless we're invited over, we need to stay on our side of the fence and support our neighbors.

I hope this wildly mixed bag of metaphors came out with some coherence.