Capability Is Not Responsibility

You fixed it once. Now you’re the person they ask every time.

Nobody announced this. It just happened.

The reward for doing it well

• Set up the family account. Now every password comes to you.
• Make one appointment. Now you’re reminding another adult to show up.
• Catch a mistake in a plan. Now they want you to run the plan.

Sometimes nobody even asks. You step in because you can do it faster.

You can do it faster. The first time.

Then they stop trying, and you keep doing it.

Being capable does not make it yours.

The part that’s hard to watch

Someone takes twenty-five minutes to do something you could do in four.

They can’t find the password. They ask a question you answered last week. You can see exactly where they’re going wrong.

Of course you want to take over. Watching this is worse than doing it.

But if you take over, you’ll be doing it next week too.

Let them take twenty-five minutes. Let them find the password. You don’t have to enjoy watching it.

They won’t learn it while you’re doing it for them.

It’s still their responsibility.

The Antiwhelm Move

Notice the next time you start doing something because it would be easier to do it yourself.

Maybe it would.

That doesn’t make it yours.

You don’t have to be bad at something to stop doing it.