Before we begin, a note: As always, please send your advice-column questions (tiny issues preferred; all issues accepted) to dearpepperquestions@gmail.com.
As an experiment, this week, I’d like to solicit your advice, too. Part of why I made this column was to define my particular way of operating in the world, as a very shy and regimented dog, balancing her need for personal boundaries with her desire to be kind to others. I’ve offered many of my rules to take or leave. Now I’m curious to hear from you.
So here is this month’s question: What do you think it’s important to be on time to, what should one be early to (and how early should one be), and when should one be late (and how late)?
I’ll choose a few of your answers—edited for brevity and clarity, and illustrated—to publish next month. Tell me if you’d like me to keep your response anonymous (or pseudonymous). Otherwise, I’ll use your first name.
Thank you for your participation. Now to this month’s column.
Dear Pepper,
I run a small big-cookie company. (The company is small, the cookies are big.)
I love to be generous. I’m in the hospitality business, after all. But I’m so tired of being asked for free cookies. The requests come from everyone—my parents and siblings, my friends, acquaintances, random strangers.
It happens at the grocery store, the dry cleaners, my church. When the phone rings, I flinch.
Yesterday, a neighbor knocked on my door at 8:30 P.M. and asked for cookies for his children.
My business is operating at capacity—we turn down potential clients all the time—and we don’t really have product to spare.
Besides, I don’t like to give my hard work away for free, except as an intentional gift. I️ also don’t want to be the cartoonishly munificent cookie lady that these people take me to be.
I️ hate that the asks make me feel curmudgeonly.
How do I️ decline nicely, while still liking myself and others?
Thank you,
Ann-Margaret
Dear Ann-Margaret,
Here is a fact: one does not have to give cookies to everyone. Except, of course, to one’s sister, and one’s best friend, one’s librarian, one’s Pilates teacher, the people on the bus, neighborhood children, and everybody else. I’m kidding. Maybe only some of them.
You know that you don’t have to give free cookies to everyone (except for dogs; they always deserve cookies, sans chocolate chips). The trick is to act on this knowledge—and to do so graciously.
You will, at times, feel ungenerous, and you might feel guilty and angry, but feelings are fleeting, and you should do your best to keep them to yourself while still setting boundaries. This will take work.
The next step is easier: let time pass. The boundaries you build will slowly become stronger, and won’t require as much effort to keep up, with just some minor maintenance here and there.
Sweetly,
Pepper
