As usual, Stephanie, you laser focus on the hardest most necessary work, in most cases, mine certainly, a lifelong struggle built on layers and layers of bad practices and habits. The great thing is its work you are more than willing to take on yourself. Where do you stand on dressing your nos up in civility, white lies, easy to swallow excuses? "The oh darn, I've got a conflict." I used to work at a publishing company where our shorthand was to reject submissions with a "nice no." The little lies that we tell ourselves make the world go round. My wife always jokes "she's got a wedding down the country that day."
Thank you! I used to dress up nos to make them more palatable, but as I've gotten older, I've stopped doing that for the most part. I realized it takes up bandwidth to come up with excuses or niceties, and I'm just not willing to part with my bandwidth in wasteful ways anymore. I've always been really introverted, so saying 'no thanks' has been pretty easy for me in that most people know my answer is "I'm gonna stay home" before they even ask anyway. If I'm going to leave my house, it's going to be because the company is amazing and the energy is good, or because the people who will be there are going to bring value to my life. I think a lot of people get mad about this one because they say you don't need to "get value" out of everything or "you can just enjoy experiences," but I do need to get value out of things I spend my time and attention on. And I'm not sorry for it anymore. Like I said in the post, I'd rather say no than say yes and feel resentful later, which then makes me mad at myself bc I KNOW that resentment is all my fault for not saying no in the first place. It's easier to stay emotionally debt free when you are honest.
Well said and well done. I understand very well the resentment part of saying yes. I also very much understand the obligation to add value in my interactions to earn attention!
My favorite no comes courtesy of E.B. White: “I must decline, for secret reasons.”
Oh yes, that is perfection.
As usual, Stephanie, you laser focus on the hardest most necessary work, in most cases, mine certainly, a lifelong struggle built on layers and layers of bad practices and habits. The great thing is its work you are more than willing to take on yourself. Where do you stand on dressing your nos up in civility, white lies, easy to swallow excuses? "The oh darn, I've got a conflict." I used to work at a publishing company where our shorthand was to reject submissions with a "nice no." The little lies that we tell ourselves make the world go round. My wife always jokes "she's got a wedding down the country that day."
Thank you! I used to dress up nos to make them more palatable, but as I've gotten older, I've stopped doing that for the most part. I realized it takes up bandwidth to come up with excuses or niceties, and I'm just not willing to part with my bandwidth in wasteful ways anymore. I've always been really introverted, so saying 'no thanks' has been pretty easy for me in that most people know my answer is "I'm gonna stay home" before they even ask anyway. If I'm going to leave my house, it's going to be because the company is amazing and the energy is good, or because the people who will be there are going to bring value to my life. I think a lot of people get mad about this one because they say you don't need to "get value" out of everything or "you can just enjoy experiences," but I do need to get value out of things I spend my time and attention on. And I'm not sorry for it anymore. Like I said in the post, I'd rather say no than say yes and feel resentful later, which then makes me mad at myself bc I KNOW that resentment is all my fault for not saying no in the first place. It's easier to stay emotionally debt free when you are honest.
Well said and well done. I understand very well the resentment part of saying yes. I also very much understand the obligation to add value in my interactions to earn attention!
Simply reading the title cracked me up. Hard YES to the “no.”
Love it!
Shoot, that could have been the title! 😅
🤦♂️