One of the biggest lessons your learn as a child is to “be nice”. I feel that this has become more of an obsession now, a kind of psychosis since many people will die before they are known to “not be nice”. Women and children allow themselves to be victimized and taken advantage of in many ways because they were taught that it was unkind to say “no” or “stop” or “don’t” as it might hurt the other persons feelings.
It has taken me a long time to throw that lesson out the window. That isn’t to say that I am going to be mean for the sake of being mean, but I am not going to let myself be victimized or taken advantage of for fear of hurting someone else’s feelings. If you ask me to do something, and I don’t want or can’t do it, I am going to say no. If I don’t like what you are doing I will tell you to stop or not to do it around me or mine. I will set boundaries and I will stick to them.That isn’t to say that I won’t try to be as nice and civilized as possible. I will use please, and thank you and try to cushion any blow that I think you might get from my saying “no” or “stop” or “don’t”.
You can call me mean. You can call me selfish. You can call me any number of other things. Just remember, that I am not going to lie to you, even though it might spare your feelings.





Yes. That is my point. We let people wear us down for their own egos and not stop to think that “being nice” isn’t always in our best interest.
Well said. It’s a sad indictment of society that when people are assertive other people label it as selfish or mean. People just expect us to say yes all the time – weird really.
Having boundaries doesn’t make you mean or selfish. I think it is the opposite. people who except you to be okay with anything they want, say or do are the ones being selfish.
This is true… I specifically think of the time when I had my son and I demanded that we be left alone so we could adjust and I could rest…and I was called selfish. If that makes me selfish…then so be it.
You were selfish because you didn’t let someone else put them selves first?