stressing all the time
I’m afraid I do this all the time.
There are things I feel I need to do. Like when I contemplate buying something expensive. I feel I need to shop around to prevent paying too much. But this comes at a price. Because there could be feelings of loyalty in play.
Years and years I’ve been looking at extensive, future dental work. I made shure I had plenty of insurance coverage for it, and of course paid for that privilege. But every time my dentist found other things to do first. And then there were the healing periods in which no extensive work could be done anyway. These take months at a time.
To make a long story short: When after more than eight years the time has finally come to actually have this extensive work done, the insurance coverage is a laugh — though still not cheap — and prices have gone up and up again. So I feel I owe it to myself, and my Financial situation, to look at ways to have the work done for considerably less money.
So far so good, you would say. But my loyalty towards my dentist comes into play. I actually get quite stressed thinking about how to tell him I’m going somewhere else for this lucrative work.
And this is not an isolated case. Quite often I start something that I expect — or think I know — will piss someone off. That doesn’t prevent me from doing it, however.
It starts by not wanting to see this coming. I try to ignore the problem as long as I can. When time is up, I suddenly start with whatever I feel I need to do, burdened by the idea that I will be pissing people off. This, of course, leads to stress.
Normal people seem to be able to weigh this quite objectively: the cost versus the stress, and make a dicision accordingly. I cannot. Once I get this feeling I have to look for alternatives, I cannot let go of that, even if the stress about who will get mad at me for it, goes through the roof. I try not to adress that as long as possible, but always seem to fail.
So — as I wrote earlier — you’d say: “Don’t do it!” They say it is that simple.
Not for me it isn’t. Never has been. “Take your loss” is something I have had to hear several times too. Can’t do that, I’m afraid. Neer could. It would involve permitting someone to welch on a promis. Many a time there’s nothing else I can do. But never in this lifetime will there be a moment I will forget, let alone forgive someone for doing that. Including myself.