When a younger person starts narrating your limitations to you, they are very often describing a problem of theirs.
It is so much easier to tell your mother she gets tired than to tell her you’re broke. It is easier to say you shouldn’t be driving at night than I don’t want to come get you. It is easier to call it rest than to call it money.
The tell is that they never ask you. They inform you. Nobody asked me whether I wanted to go to Hawaii. Nobody asked if the flight worried me. They wrote it on a piece of paper and stuck it to a refrigerator with a turkey.
So when you hear it: ask one question back. What’s the real reason?
