Do you really ask for the things you want in your life?
I had an experience this week and realised that most people (including me) don’t… I went to see my regular masseuse. I've been seeing him for years and we get on really well. After the appointment had ended, I got dressed and was standing in the room. He started talking about his business and what was happening with him. I'd only seen him for an hour and as he was talking, I was watching the clock… 5 minutes went by… 10 minutes went by… 15 minutes went by… and he was still talking… Now he was starting to tidy up the treatment room… Folding the towels… Wiping the surfaces… Cleaning the floor... 20 minutes went by… 25 minutes went by… And I was standing there while he did all of this wondering when he was going to stop. I didn't interject. I wanted to leave. It was late in the day. I just had a massage. I was ready to go home and unwind some more, but he was intent on continuing to talk. But I wasn't interjecting. I hadn't set any boundaries and I was just going along with him. After half an hour, I finally brought myself to ‘interject’ and I said, ‘did I pay online or do I need to pay now?’ He said, ‘oh no, you need to just take care of it now.’ I started to move the conversation along and it was the last appointment. I said, ‘is this your last appointment of the day?’ He said, ‘yeah.’ When I first started seeing this masseuse, it was at his home and his home is a two minute walk from mine. It was at that moment that it dawned on me what was happening and I said, ‘are you going home?’ He said, ‘yeah.’ I said, ‘would you like a lift?’ He said, ‘that would be amazing!’ I couldn't help but think that that was what he was engineering all along and had he asked, I would of course have said yes, but neither of us said what we wanted to when we wanted to. And it got me thinking… Are we setting up life to live on your terms? Are we asking for what we want when we want it or are we waiting to the last minute like my masseuse & I did?