I hate nagging, particularly I hate finding myself nagging. I feel how unattractive I am when I do it, and how annoyed the person I am nagging is, and, furthermore… I have never seen nagging WORK?
I wanted Jen to work on getting her driver’s license. I didn’t get mine until I was 24, and I knew it would help her be independent to have it. Also, selfishly, I wanted to take her some day on a trip that required a plane, and she’d need a government ID. It might as well be a driver’s license.
I nagged and nagged and nagged. Eventually, she got her driver’s license, but it wasn’t in response to my nagging, it was because she got a job downtown and discovered how annoying it was to have to rely on public transportation and rides from friends. I had, in fact, given up nagging by that point.
I wanted Brian to finish Tinselfly. He needed to stop changing the story and the settings and concentrate on getting his current version finished. I nagged. A lot. It didn’t work. There’s now a BIG change in the storyline and we’re making all new settings. Tinselfly may never be finished, and nothing I say will do anything about it.
Every time I nag, I feel like I’m pushing the goal further into the future. I know it doesn’t help Brian or Jen for me to remind them that I want this thing to happen; they know that already.
I can’t think of a time someone nagging me got ME to do something. More, I can recall resolving NOT to do something just to spite someone who nagged me, even when I knew it was in my own best interest to do the thing.
So why do the nagging?
Nagging is a contradiction.
You are taking responsibility for something, but you are also not doing it.
We nag because we are caught in this contradiction, feeling responsible and yet not. I can’t get Jen’s driver’s license for her. I can’t finish Tinselfly for Brian. So I nag.
The thing is someone else’s responsibility and you are adding your nag to the weight of that responsibility, in the hopes that you’ll push them, but instead you’re annoying them, digging their heels in, and making the task seem heavier.
If it’s your responsibility, do it. If it isn’t, well… you can’t control if it happens or not. Let it go.
This is super hard to do. I WANT Brian’s game to be finished so bad. I WANT Jen to get her passport now, because Ohio by default doesn’t give you the Real ID (unless you live in a traditionally republican-voting district, I noticed. *Cough.*) I can’t make these things happen any faster.
I need to remind myself that other people are free to choose their priorities, just as I am. Free myself from feeling like I HAVE to nag, like what is not my responsibility is also my responsibility.
Repeat: What is not my responsibility is NOT my responsibility. And yes, it may be dropped. But that’s someone else’s mess, not mine.
Ultimately, I can only control what I do.
