The power of 'no'

Don't be a people-please like me; recognise that 'no' is a complete sentence

 

Growing up as an inveterate people-pleaser, I came rather late to the power of saying ‘no’. As a child, a teenager, and then a young adult, I spent many hours of my life doing things that I actively disliked because I couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that I could actually refuse to do them. Now that I look back, I realize that I must have wasted an entire year (if not more) of my life saying yes to stuff that I really should have said a firm ‘no’ to. 

 

Well, those days are long gone. Now that I am in my middle years, I have zero compunction about saying ‘no’ to people, no matter how awkward the interaction may become as a consequence. I think the transition occurred in the Covid years, when enforced solitude made most of us examine our life choices. And as I looked back on my own life, I realized that most of my unhappiness stemmed from occasions when I had said ‘yes’ despite my misgivings. And with that realization in mind, I gave myself permission to say ‘no’ to anything that left me cold.

 

The resolution made, I implemented it on my first trip abroad soon after the Covid restrictions were lifted. We were wandering through Spain, when an Indian couple turned to me, held their phone out peremptorily, and asked me to take their picture. The very thought of holding someone else’s phone (which might as well be a petri dish of germs) brought me out in hives. In a previous incarnation I may have tamped down on my germophobia, taken the photo, and spent the rest of the day obsessively sanitizing my hands. But this time, I took a deep breath and replied with a simple, “No, thank you.” The couple looked as if they had been slapped in the face, but I wasn’t going to add any explanation to my refusal. 

 

‘No,’ as the saying goes, ‘is a complete sentence’.

 

Since then, I have deployed the power of ‘no’ in myriad situations, and I am much happier for setting up boundaries for myself (and for other people). At parties and dinners, I refuse to get brow-beaten by hosts who insist that I have ‘just one more drink’ or another helping of dessert. Initially, I would try and shame them into backing off by explaining that I was a diabetic. But now I offer no sugar-coating (oh! The irony!) to my ‘no’. I have had my fill of your excellent wine, I don’t want any seconds, and no, dessert doesn’t occupy a separate compartment in my stomach. No means no.

 

The same goes for invitations. If they don’t spark joy (with apologies to Marie Kondo) in my heart, then I would rather stay home than waste my time pretending to have fun. Which is why when a friend invited me to a bhajan evening at her home with her spiritual guru, I decided to adopt my new-found mantra and reply, “Thanks very much, but no, I’m really not a bhajan-type person.”

 

Her reply came back immediately. A laughing emoji followed by, “I love your honesty!” Which made me think that all of us would be better off if we applied the power of ‘no’ judiciously in our own lives.