Mind Your Business

Somebody once told me I was "one of the good ones." I laughed it off. It took me years to understand what I'd actually agreed to. We've all learned to call a certain kind of silence a boundary. If it doesn't touch me, it's not my problem. I look out for me and mine, and everybody else can figure out their own thing. And honestly — I get it. I've lived it. But somewhere along the way, "minding my own business" stopped being wisdom for me and started being a place to hide. This one sits in the line between the two. When is stepping back a healthy boundary, and when is it just avoidance wearing a boundary's clothes? I tell on myself here — the rooms where I was the "acceptable exception" and stayed quiet while the people I belong to took the hit. We get into why we all ask "why me," what our silence costs the people who aren't in the room to defend themselves, and why the real work was never on a stage or out in the streets. It's in the one conversation where you're the only person who knows better. This isn't a call to argue with everyone about everything. It's an honest look at what we owe the rooms we're already standing in. Pull up a seat. — Working through some of this in your own life? That's the kind of thing I help with at coachjwill.com. Reach the show anytime at [email protected]. Stay honest, stay curious. The chair's open.