Sometimes You Just Have To Say Good-Bye

When I was in graduate school, I was lucky to be grouped with a fellow intern who I'll call Jason. Not lucky as in blessed to have a friend who I enjoyed spending time with; lucky as in fortunate to learn what I should stay away from.

I'm not going to attempt to be generous in my recollection of Jason. He was a prototypical user, someone whose idea of being a good friend was gracing you with his good looks over lunch in exchange for you picking up the tab.

Like me, Jason didn't have much money. But he still wanted to live like he did. Rather than rent a dormitory room on campus for $350 a month, he chose an $800 apartment that was a 15-minute drive from the clinic where we were doing our internship. A 15-minute drive might not seem like a big deal until you know that Jason didn't have a car. Yes sir, he had the gall to choose a fancier place to live with the expectation that he could rely on fellow interns to drive him to and from the clinic - for those who may be wondering, this was many years before the invention of Uber.

For months, I shared driving duties for Jason with two other interns. Though I felt some resentment over getting back to my room an hour later on nights when I drove Jason home, I couldn't imagine him walking the commute during winter months in Chicago.

One evening as our shift was about to end, Jason sauntered up to me, hand extended for a fist bump, and said, "You got my lift tonight, BK?" He hadn't asked me for a drive that evening prior to that moment, and I had already committed to meeting a friend in the opposite direction, so I told him that I was sorry I couldn't.

True to past form, he tried to guilt me into breaking my other commitment and helping him out. But I held firm, tired of feeling used, and when Jason realized that he wasn't getting a lift from me that evening, he snorted in disgust and declared that I had screwed him.

I don't know how Jason got home that night, but his last words reverberated in my head over the next few days as I considered how I felt about his anger and accusation that I had done him wrong.

It occurred to me that this and other times that Jason had gotten angry, his displeasure wasn't caused by something that I had done to him. Rather, he would get upset over things that I wouldn't do for him - a simple distinction, but it was a memorable light bulb that flicked on in my 23-year old head, a moment of realization that I didn't have to feel bad about respectfully declining such requests. This may seem like common sense, but when you're looking to be helpful, when you're looking to be a good friend, it isn't always obvious when someone with entitlement syndrome is pushing you to a quicker death by using you up.

I think most would agree that this type of selfishness often stems from past wounds. In Jason's case specifically, I attribute his sense of entitlement to him losing his father at a young age; I could see the little things that he didn't seem to be aware of, points that a thoughtful parent strives to teach his or her child like filling up the gas tank of a friend's car if that friend has been kind enough to lend it. I don't think anyone taught Jason the Golden Rule, and somehow, he came to feel that those around him existed for his use.

It's noble to be generous and compassionate, but let's remember that we are like batteries - slowly, we are being drained of our energy, and for those of us who are fortunate, we won't be completely empty until we've lived through about 30,000 days. So at some point, I think it's important for us to consider who we give our finite energy to.

A lovely aspect of energy is that people who are thoughtful and who deeply care about us can actually gift us energy. Maybe not ATP energy for cellular metabolism, but real feelings of warmth that lift us up, not beat us down. Which is hopefully what we provide for those we deeply care about, even without knowing that we are doing this for them.

Whenever we aren't sure about someone we are choosing to spend time with, we ought to ask ourselves how we feel after being with this person. Do we feel cared for and inspired to be our best selves? Or do we feel used, resentful, and sad?

We are likely well served by honouring our gut answers to these questions.

Simply put, there are some people in this world who are self-centered; that is, their choices are consistently centered on their own wants without much regard for those around them. We shouldn't expect such adults to experience a significant transformation in their pattern of behaviour or to even acknowledge their self-centeredness. They can't recognize or own something that they can't feel. People who regularly use others are too focused on their own desires to know what shame and remorse are.

This isn't to say that there isn't magic in being generous and loving. The idea is to become more discerning in who we choose to give our life energy to.

Our time here is too precious to spend on people who leave us feeling used or manipulated. No thank you, good luck, and good-bye are all we need say. Send them light and send them off.

And for ways in which such people have mistreated us, let's forgive them even if they aren't sorry. Let them say we did them wrong if this is how they feel. Let's not allow additional thoughts about them steal from our well-being.

Let's protect and cherish our well-being.