"We secure our friends not by accepting favors but by doing them." - Thucydides
I am almost always happy to do a favor for a friend. I cannot remember the last time, if ever, that someone has asked me for my help and I've said "no". But I've been inundated with some pretty onerous requests lately and I suspect I'm getting close to that first "I'm afraid not" response. In the past few days, I've been asked to coach a friend's child's boyfriend in his job search, to recommend a P.R. firm to advocate for a group of insurance lawyers, to advise a friend's grown daughter on educational opportunities, to testify at a hearing about a legal fee matter that I have no involvement in and to speak to another pacemaker wearer about my personal experience as a pacemaker wearer. Mostly that's all okay. But there are some limits. The thirty minutes I agreed to give the boyfriend to help him figure out his search, became three hours. I had already written his resume, coached him through a crisis at his previous employer and written him a guide for his job search. Apparently, that wasn't quite enough. He hadn't followed any of the advice I had already given him and hadn't even contacted the companies I advised him to check out. Instead, he railed at the injustice of not being offered the one entry level position to which he had applied. I am more than happy to speak to my friend's daughter about school but she is young and can do the research on programs much more easily than I can. She wants to understand what programs in her field of study are available as distance education. I presume that she can put that question into Google search as easily as I can.
I spent Saturday at my first ever sale of my jewellery and painted creations which was being very graciously hosted by my friend Cathy at her home two hours north of Toronto. I've been busy getting ready for the sale for weeks. I decided to give myself all of Sunday to recuperate. But on my way north on Saturday morning I had a note from a rather panicked former client asking that I give him feedback on a new employment offer. I really couldn't do it Saturday and he was working against the clock so I agreed to a Sunday afternoon meeting. That meeting turned into a series of emails, the last of which I sent at one o'clock this morning. Then came a text from a friend telling me he had been in a car accident and asking me for advice on the legal action he should be taking. I didn't think, "How in the Hell should I know" was a great response in the circumstances but it was what I wanted to say. And it was the same thing I wanted to say about the P.R. firm recommendation. I suppose it is a step up from the request I got from another young friend to touch up her resume for her, preferably by the end of the day. That one came on Good Friday when I was single-handedly preparing dinner for ten. I didn't hear my cell phone ring and didn't pick up the message until nearly eleven that night. She had somehow managed to figure it out in the meantime which tells me she could have figured it out in the first place.
This morning I attended the funeral of a friend's mother-in-law. I turned off my phone as I entered the church and turned it on a few minutes after I left. Within a minute I had a message from a friend requesting that I call him urgently. He needed a favor. I'm afraid I almost ripped his head off which was an unfair response to his question. I will apologize. I'm a bit spent these days and realizing as I've been told many times from a friend that while it is great to nourish everyone, it is impossible to pour from an empty teapot. This teapot is running dry. I still have a number of commitments this week - a meeting with a friend's sister to help her navigate her journey through breast cancer and another fundraising sale at my mom's nursing home among the items on my agenda. I think though I'm just going to schedule a day the following week when I'm going to turn off my phone and my computer. I don't plan to advise anyone, to cook for anyone or to meet with anyone. I'll just take out my paints or my beads and play, all day. Maybe I will declare it Favor Free Friday. Time to refill the teapot.
