Being Easygoing Has a Price

Being easygoing is pleasant until it becomes your job description.

You do not care where you eat. You can change your plans. You understand why they forgot. You will take the smaller room. You can wait.

Flexibility is a lovely quality. But if everyone around you becomes accustomed to your preferences having no weight, eventually they may stop checking whether you have any.

This is not always malicious. People learn the shape we repeatedly present.

Practice introducing a little friction.

Choose the restaurant. Say that Tuesday does not work. Admit that the joke bothered you. Ask for the seat you actually want.

The goal is not to become difficult. It is to stop making your own absence the price of being considered pleasant.

Relationships that can only remain peaceful when you require nothing are not especially peaceful. They are simply quiet.