DR. MARK KESTNER, Post Columnist
Posted: Sunday, July 18, 2010 8:08 am

Stress is increasingly more prevalent in our culture.

Workplaces, family life, even friendships are becoming more stressful.

Most of us are caught up in a busy life and are exhausted just by getting through the day. Very few people manage to be able to step back long enough to evaluate their lives.

We all live within the confines of the life we have made for ourselves.

Did you catch that last phrase? The part about the “life we have made for ourselves”? Whatever your circumstances today; your life is primarily the result of your lifetime of decisions. You managed to put yourself exactly at the spot you now find yourself. Your decisions from this point forward will determine how the rest of your life turns out.

Some of the most frequent decisions that you and I make on a daily basis is how to respond to the requests and complaints of others.

If we are consummate doormats, others will recognize this quickly and take advantage of our willingness to be treaded upon. (If your family and friends seem to treat you with less respect that you feel you deserve, this may be an issue for you.)

If we readily absorb everyone else’s troubles because we feel a debt to be sympathetic, we end up suffering vicariously through the misery of others. (If you frequently are told, “You are so easy to talk to, I can tell you everything,” you may be overly sympathetic.)

If we end up taking on more responsibility than we really should, more and more tasks will find their way onto our to-do lists. This often includes tasks that should be handled by someone else. (If you find that others tend to hand over the responsibilities for events and projects to you, and that you end up doing 90 percent of the work, you may be a responsibility martyr. “I have so much to do that I can never get caught up. I do it because no one else will lift a hand!”)

Notice that all of these characteristics can end up placing us in an undesirable stressful circumstance. More often than not, at the root of this stress is the act of accepting responsibility for issues that rightfully belongs on the shoulders of someone else.

For example, a mom that is already very busy with normal tasks that are appropriate for a mother is overwhelmed by the additional responsibilities that her teenage children dump on her. Instead of the teens successfully developing into young adults that are learning to accept and handle responsibility for their own lives, they have learned that it is much easier to let mom handle everything for them.

Often, people are caught off guard or accept inappropriate responsibilities as a matter of habit. It seems difficult to deflect the transfer of tasks or responsibilities that rightfully belong to others. If you realize that your life would be less stressful if you successfully avoided this trap, here are some simple phrases to practice.

Instead of silently agreeing to accept this inappropriate shuffling of responsibility, try these responses.

Your friend: “You really have to help me… what should I do?” You respond, “Oh my goodness! I can see why you are upset. What are you going to do about it?”

Your teen: “Mom, I have to go to a party tonight. Can you wash my favorite blouse now pleeaaase? I reeeaally need it!” Response “I understand your reason for being upset, since you didn’t plan well enough to be prepared. What other solution can you come up with?”

We all need to be good friends, family members and workers. However, accepting other people’s responsibility is not healthy, for you or for them.