Do you constantly do things you don’t want to do?

Any time I do cleaning in my house, it’s a toss up between “don’t want to do this” and “need to do this and i’ll feel better when it’s cleaner.”

Sometimes I make plans to go out and see friends, and I really would prefer to just stay home and relax but once the plans are made, I’m obligated. I will tell myself that it’s not very often that I see these people, so just go and do it, and once I’m out, it’s ok. Still, I will look forward to being home and relaxing.

Any type of errand is not something that I really want to do, like taking the car to put gas in it, or taking the car to the mechanic, or going to the doctor, or the supermarket. I’d say of those choices, the supermarket is the one that is the least awful, but none of the choices are prefereable to staying home and relaxing.

Not constantly. For instance, I have been putting off a kitchen deep clean for a good week. I know I need to do it, but there always good reasons not to.

If nothing else, it’s a question of personal autonomy. I get to decide when I do things.

I own a house, am married, and have a daughter. That comes with the gig.

I’ve learned that when you decide to have these things in your life, your life is primarily in service to those things and that service isn’t always what you want to be doing. If you’re lucky, you’re appreciated for your efforts and can squeak out some happiness along the way before you die.

Yes, and I argue with myself about doing them. If another person or an agency requests something, I get angry at them. Silly, huh? I’d save myself so many negative emotions if I’d just do the damned thing!

Currently I’m angry at the library because in order to renew my card, their website says I have to go there and show an id and/or show something with my current address on it. I’ve been having some issues lately and haven’t been out in 6–7 weeks and don’t want to go there. I have to wait until Tuesday when they’re open to try to find a way around this ‘being-in-person’ business. I think I’ll just say f*ck it and buy the book on kindle even though it’s more than I want to pay.

Not anymore. It’s part of growing and aging. You are freer to do as you please when the kids grow up and you get to retire. It is a wonderful time of life.

I think most of us do things we don’t want to do at least sometimes throughout our lives. Whether it is because of a responsibility you have (working to provide a home, taking the kids to after school events, etc) or because you feel you have a duty (taking vacation to go see a relative instead of going on an adventure), we all do things that are not all about us. Things that we don’t always want to do.

I’m with @SnipSnip though on the fact that as I get older I do less of this. My kids are all older and out of the house (except one I can’t blast out of here even if I used TNT), I no longer have a job I have to rush off to that puts all sorts of demands on me…I have a whole lot more “me” time. I’m still doing some things I’m not always keen on doing, but the list is so much shorter now it is almost comical.

The bulk of my time is this. It’s rare I get time to myself.

I was just telling someone the other night how I think that much of parenting is drudgery. People don’t talk about it, they make it all sound rosey, but a lot of it is sitting waiting for the kid to get out of the bathtub, when you’re tired and you’re thinking you have to put laundry away, or serving the child a meal and making sure they have what they need, then taking the plates away, cleaning the child up, or waiting while the child goes poo, or any other things that are not always joyous. It’s drudgery. Now that my daughter is 17, there’s none of that and it’s a lot freer than being the parent of a little kid.

Sort of?

I’m doing tasks that I don’t want to do, but that I want to be done.

But on the other hand, I want to be living my life a certain way and all of these little things contribute to that.

So I would say yes on a smaller scale and no on the larger scale.

Very rarely at this point in my life. No partner, no kids at home or nearby, no work, financial stability allow me to do what I want when I want to do it. I feel very privileged.

Such a good question. I was just thinking about this today. One of my brothers wanted me to come visit him in another state for a week this summer. I care about him, but I just didn’t want to. I kept making excuses and I really should have been honest and said that I wasn’t feeling like visiting this year, maybe next year.
I do find myself doing what I want, when I want, more and more. But I have no one to answer to and I’m retired. I really love my life.

Pretty much what @raum said, very well put.
In order to maintain a certain desired status in my community (liked a certain amount, people willing to do business with me, being welcomed certain places, that sort of thing) I am required to be civil and sometimes pleasant to people I don’t like or respect.

As an older person with my own means, I don’t have to do a lot of stuff that I don’t enjoy. The color of my hair (silver/white) let’s me get away with a lot.

Oh I find myself doing what I want when I want as far as filling my days, etc. It’s the minutiae that I have to do that I don’t want to do – dealing with other people and agencies that we all have to do at some time or another.

No, if I’m not interested,I just say that I’m busy at that time.

I rarely do anything that I don’t want to do. I mean even a root canal is something that you may “need to do” as opposed to “don’t want to do”

Since I retired the concept of doing things I don’t want to do has almost ceased to exist. The very concept of “me” seems to have become less certain and well defined as the years have passed. Today, a lot of my life is lived through my children and my grandchildren and I consider it a privilege to be able to help them.

Of course. I’m a grown up, not a child.

There’s close to nothing in my life that I do that I want to be doing.

- Housebound disabled person, not enough income for expenses (mostly medical), married 15 years, parent of special needs kids

Yes.