Have you ever taken into account how much of your time is spent on someone else’s needs, wants, and desires? Or how much time is spent fretting over some perceived wrong done to you? What about concerning yourself with other people’s business? These are things that take up too much of your valuable time that could be used either being productive for your own sake and that of your family, or just enjoying life.

For the first question, unless your time is spent on someone who is totally dependent on you like your child, it shouldn’t be more than half (I know that’s not the reality). And no one should be required to spend too much time on you. For me personally it would be smothering and clingy, but I can’t speak for anyone else. Of course you should spend quality time with someone you care about, but alone time is good for you because it allows you to rejuvenate and remember who you are. Constantly being with someone or thinking about them means that you ignore yourself.

Question 2: There are organizations and charities and the like that come into being because of some tragedy or illness that has befallen someone close. This is a good thing, but on occasion it becomes the life’s blood of the person who organizes. Yes, it is important to make others aware, to advocate for a cause, or to seek justice. However, do you lose who you used to be because of it? There are families, for instance, that fall apart after a tragedy instead of becoming closer and embracing life more. I’m not saying that people’s feelings aren’t important; it’s how they express them and react that makes them either stronger or disappear.

For the third question, I’m specifically talking about the invasive people who believe they are the authority on other people’s lives, especially when those people don’t know of your existence or could care less about your beliefs. If someone is unaware of some information, the Internet is full of all kinds of data (not all good of course) that can direct them or help them out. One example is companies that do “cold calls” to push their information on people not on their customer lists. They don’t have enough filters to exclude people who don’t want or need that information, so the calls should be limited to those customer lists.

And of course, there are the religious sects (like Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons) who knock on people’s doors to spread their beliefs. I think it’s one good thing that’s come out of COVID, because they don’t do it anymore. Now they just stand in certain areas to bother people walking by.

The worst of these invaders, though, are the people who stick their noses into other people’s situations. Again, referring to a court show, there was a woman who tried to block a man in his parking spot because she thought he was using a handicapped space illegally. The man had the sticker, so he had the right. She determined that he was not handicapped because of his appearance (not knowing anything about him or maybe a passenger of his), so she was not going to “tolerate” this action. And she took him to court because he hit her vehicle getting out of the spot!