The GR8 Journey

The tribute I stopped volunteering for

Someone told me the other day, "I gotta get you to stop volunteering for stuff, man!"

I laughed it off in the moment. Then I sat with it longer than I expected to, because they weren't wrong. I am always the first hand up. Somebody needs help moving, somebody's covering a shift and can't find anyone, somebody's problem lands in a group chat and I'm already typing "I got you" before I've finished reading the whole message. Step in. Assist. Serve. Repeat. It's just what I do.

Except — why? Why am I always trying to save the day? I can barely save myself most days. Like girl, sit down!

That's the part I actually had to sit with. Not the volunteering itself — I don't think helping people is the problem, and I'm not trying to become somebody who doesn't. The problem showed up when I looked at the whole pattern instead of just the latest favor. I know everybody's schedule. I know what's stressing them out, what's due when, who's covering what. I could not have told you the same information about my own week if you'd asked me right then. I have asked "what can I do?" and "is everything okay?" more times than anyone has ever asked me that. It's not close. It's not even a fair fight.

You know that post that goes around social media, "check on your strong friends"? I used to scroll right past it. Cute sentiment, I guess. Turns out it is not cliché at all — not once you actually start counting how many times you've shown up for everybody else's emergency and how many times anybody has shown up for yours. LIKE SOMEONE COME CHECK ON MEEEEE. I used to think I didn't need that kind of checking on. Turns out I needed it the whole time. I was just too busy being needed by everybody else to notice I was on the list too.

I used to be the first hand up. Somebody's short a hand, I'm there. Somebody's carrying too much? Hand goes up. Nobody ever asked me the same question back. Not once. Not "do you need anything."

So I stopped volunteering myself as tribute.

That's the actual sentence that fixed something in me. Not a mantra. Not an affirmation I had to say in the mirror. Just a decision, made out loud, to myself, on a regular day, that I was done being the default yes. I'm not the stand-in for everybody else's hard week. I'm allowed to let somebody else's hand go up first for once. I'm allowed to not answer on the first ring. I'm allowed to let the phone ring out sometimes and deal with it later, like everyone else apparently gets to do.

Sound familiar? If you're the one everyone calls, the one who already knows the answer before they finish asking the question, the one who has never once not picked up — I'm not telling you to stop caring about people. I'm telling you to start counting. Count how many times you've asked somebody if they're okay this month. Then count how many times somebody's asked you. If the math comes out as lopsided as mine did, that's not a coincidence, and it's definitely not a compliment.

All that energy I used to hand out on request? It's mine now. I still show up for people — I just stopped volunteering myself as the default answer to a question nobody actually asked me in the first place.

And remember, it's not just the greatness for me, it's the greatness for you too!