One of the first words most children learn to say is No. The right to assert your personal will kicks in at an early age. What you want becomes the supreme and overriding concern. Parents battle with this will to make compliant and obedient children and it seems to me that we spend the rest of our lives learning when and how to say no and when to let things ride.
I’ve been thinking about things I’ve learned in my twenties and one of those lessons is when to say no, working out when it’s okay for me to assert my personal will and stop what I don’t want to happen to me from happening.
I used to be the girl who couldn’t say no – I didn’t want to cause confrontation so I would comply against my wishes to avoid conflict.
But the past few years, I’ve learnt it’s reasonable to say no to a relationship that is detrimental to me and to say no when people want to take advantage of my good nature. That I’m allowed to say no to people I respect and admire if they ask me to do something unreasonable or if I feel they’ve not got my best interests at heart. Learning to say no at the right time, means learning not to be a doormat and finding out when compassion or even politeness stops, and being abused in some way begins. Saying no has saved me repeating heartbreak or making stupid mistakes twice. I wish I’d learned to say no earlier!
Discovering I can say no to things, and the world will keep spinning is immensely liberating. Knowing that I can choose to say no makes it easier for me to make decisions about what I want to do with my life, where I want to go and why and how, because I’m clearer about what I won’t put up with.
I’m still learning this though, and there are things coming up all the time that I should say no to but don’t until it’s too late. But practise makes perfect!
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