Self-care and self-knowledge: how a need for setting personal boundaries is rooted in my own foibles

I swear I will never ask a friend who is a doctor or a friend who is a lawyer for free advice again. I know what it must feel like, because as a former English teacher and current copy editor, I get asked to read people's shit ALL. THE. TIME. Sometimes, they don't even ask me if I'll do it: I just get documents or a google drive link sent to me in a messaging app (IG or Facebook, usually) like I have nothing better to do than read your paper/essay/manuscript/ screenplay/resume/application/thesis.

My problem is that I have a hard time saying 'no'. I likely have some sort of relationship with this person (they're a personal friend, former student, someone I met through volunteering or work, or worst of all, a friend/relative of a friend. Anyway, the point is, I have a relationship with them or someone else they're close to, and they are exploiting that very relationship by asking me to do this thing. Not wanting to seem like a dick, I say yes; silly me, I have failed to realize that it is actually THEY who are the dick (this is better explained by Josh Olson in his 2009 Village Voice piece, "I Will Not Read Your F*%!ing Script").

So often on social media, we see memes, reposts and shared articles about "setting boundaries". How can we set boundaries around this sort of thing? I'm asking myself the question, but wonder how others feel.

When I was freelancing as a tutor/copy editor, I would charge somewhere in the neighborhood of $25 a page for proofreading/copyediting services. Should I start charging those who know me, regardless of our relationship? Will it hurt our relationship? What if I charge some people and not others? What's the criteria for charging one person over another?

All my life, my friends spoiled me with free labor out of the kindness of their hearts. My ex-boyfriend's best friend would fix my car for free in high school; another close friend whom I knew from martial arts training would often do home repairs for me. Unfortunately, I came to expect these "favors" as part of the currency of friendship: while I was always grateful to them, I kind of wished they had set clearer boundaries so I would, in turn, know how to set my own.

I once asked a very dear friend to read a draft of a chapter of a book I was working on. She gave me a very kind but firm response (she's a buddhist, after all): "When you think you have a final draft, then let's talk." This was effective; while she didn't say no outright, she gently put me in a position in which I had to be held accountable to myself. I went back to my computer and worked on the draft; I have yet to ask her again for help.

You see, often when I get asked for help with writing, the document in question is barely out of the draft stage. What they're really asking for is a writing coach, and that's an investment. If you have a special skill, would you be willing to give it away for free? In some cases, yes: if you were perhaps doing volunteer work (in which case you've already opted into that arrangement), or maybe the recipient of your talents is a close family member or young kid who may otherwise not have the resources to pay for said help. Or maybe, just maybe, you offered. All of those scenarios are reasonable.

I remember that another one of our martial arts students, an attorney, was known for giving legal help to some of the other black belts. Of course, I asked him to help me with a few things: he willingly complied, but there was also a weird teacher-student relationship unique to the martial arts at play here, and it would have been considered disrespectful for him to say no. That's not why I asked him: he was someone I trusted, but the fact that it was free certainly didn't deter me. After a few of these requests, he gently referred me to a colleague of his who he felt was "better equipped" to handle my particular situation. This colleague was willing to help me, but also sent me a bill for several hundred dollars. I paid, and also got the hint.

A few years later, I emailed another attorney friend a contract to look at, and she (not one of my martial arts students, mind you) didn't hesitate to email back, "You did not just send me a f**king T and C [terms and conditions] to read over? Please!" Well then. Last time we make THAT mistake. However, her firm assertion of her boundaries was neither sugarcoated nor murky: it was crystal clear. The good news is that my even asking had absolutely no impact on our friendship, other than the guarantee that I never request that again. Has she offered to help since then? Absolutely.

The point of all these examples is that I've been turned down (or "redirected") for asking for free help, and survived; now I have to learn to do the same when I'm asked for help. I should really stop calling it 'help' and call it 'unpaid labor' instead, because that's what it is: if anyone I knew really needed actual help, I'd offer it no questions asked.

Once again I need the words of professional writer Josh Olson to drive home my point:

"You are not owed a read from a professional, even if you think you have an in, and even if you think it’s not a huge imposition. It’s not your choice to make. This needs to be clear — when you ask a professional for their take on your material, you’re not just asking them to take an hour or two out of their life, you’re asking them to give you — gratis — the acquired knowledge, insight, and skill of years of work. It is no different than asking your friend the house painter to paint your living room during his off-hours.

There’s a great story about Pablo Picasso. Some guy told Picasso he’d pay him to draw a picture on a napkin. Picasso whipped out a pen and banged out a sketch, handed it to the guy, and said, 'One million dollars, please.'

'A million dollars?' the guy exclaimed. 'That only took you thirty seconds!'

'Yes,' said Picasso. 'But it took me fifty years to learn how to draw that in thirty seconds.'"

I'm not a Picasso fan, but still...

So, while I'm working on this particular aspect of "self-care", here's my tip: next time you get the urge to ask your professional friend to just "look over" something, think about what you're asking. Really.