It seems like every fourth post I see on social media is about setting boundaries. Often the aphoristic messages are portrayed as handwritten on a white board or note pad or held up on a piece of poster board.
Like, ok, we should set boundaries, got it, check.
But the way it’s portrayed makes it sound like the old narratives around food and weight. Eat less, exercise more, it’s simple. If you’re not doing it, or you’re doing it and it’s not working, then it must be, well, you. Something’s wrong with you. Of course, recent medical advances and the breathless marketing associated with the new drugs associated with that medicine now shows that it’s not that simple. Some people can eat very little and exercise lots and not lose weight and GLP-1 agonists help them lose weight. Other people, as Tressie McMillian Cottom wrote in the New York Times, won’t have access to these drugs because they are too expensive, not covered by insurance or for other systemic reasons.
The narrative that we should all be Boundary Ninjas and if we’re not it’s our fault isn’t especially helpful or true. Systemic and cultural forces make it difficult to set boundaries at work and in our personal lives. Pretending that’s not so helps no one.
