Do you ever find it hard to say no?
To other people’s requests? To other people’s behavior you’re uncomfortable with?
Maybe even hard to say “no” to your own impulses?
Or to fun opportunities when they come at inopportune times? (”Come on bro, a couple of lines of coke and a few shots of heroin won’t hurt your court hearing tomorrow…” 😉 )
You’re not alone.
In fact, people who find it easy to say no appear to be a minority.
Not everyone struggles with it to the same degree. But just like you, most people have experienced situations in which they said “yes” when they didn’t mean to. For myriad reasons:
- Avoiding conflict or confrontation
- Not wanting to disappoint others or hurting their feelings
- Feeling indebted for past favors
- Going along to procure future favors
- Worrying about repercussions (not feeling safe)
Sometimes it can be as simple as thinking saying “no” needs a specific reason.
This was my own pattern for yearrs:
If there’s no strong reason to say no, why be the one to make things hard, right? Just say “yes”.
Well, turns out I was wrong about that.
Because “yes” leads a shocking secret life.
You may think “yes” is a great guy. Because everybody loves hearing him.
But honestly, he’s kind of a dick. He just has good PR.
The truth is: Everything you worry “no” would do, “yes” does a million times over.
If this sounds confusing, let’s have a look at what “yes” is actually a doing.
Because once you truly let this sink in, you will never look at “no” the same way again.
“Yes” and “no” are both words which express a decision.
Whether it is about boundaries, proposals, ideas, requests, …whenever you use these words, you use them to decide:
“I want this, not that.”
Etymologically, making a de-cision means to “cut off”. Just like an in-cision means to “cut in” and a “circum-cision” means to “cut a little boy’s wee wee”.
(Writer’s note: If you wanna be all “pre-cise” about it, sure. Some students of Latin claim that “circum” simply means “around”. Way to ruin a joke, guys.)
Whenever you use the words “yes” or “no”, you are making a de-cision and therefore cutting something off.
Every time you say “no” to something, you are cutting off the possibility of willingly making that thing happen.
However, what most people miss is that every time you say “yes” to something, you are cutting off all other possibilities in existence simultaneously.
For example:
If your neighbor invites you to an activity you wouldn’t enjoy, and you say “no”, you are stopping that activity from happening.
On the other hand, if you say “yes” to your neighbor’s proposal of watching paint dry at his apartment, then you are, in fact, silently saying “no” to an infinite list of other things which could happen. Including but not limited to:
- Finally making time to start your dream project
- Renting a hot air balloon and filling the basket with cold water balloons. Then floating over the city with your friends, giving cold showers to unsuspecting strangers, and shouting “Hey, I just gave you free fat burning and immunity benefits, bro! Show some gratitude. Jeez, don’t you watch Andrew Huberman???” when they get pissed.
- Keeping your afternoon free in case Megan Fox finally matches you on Tinder. So that you can invite her over, sit on the sofa awkwardly staring at her face and then ask “Ehm… Wanna go watch my neighbor’s paint dry for a bit? I hear it’s pretty rad.”
In other words:
No, just means no.
But yes means a million no’s.
This isn’t just “philosophically true” but also practically.
Saying yes all the time will eventually lead to either:
- Having to say no to things you truly care about because you committed to something random
- Having to disappoint the people you said “yes” to because you don’t keep your commitments to them
So if you are afraid of no’s, let me break it to you, kid:
Yes is a million times scarier.
Between the two, one simple ‘no’ is the safer bet. Unless the yes is strong enough to be worth a million.
Because that is how a true yes feels. A true yes shines so bright that it illuminates the shadows of the million no’s it created.
It says yes to something you really want. So much that if someone were to give you a print-out of all the exact things your yes is saying “no” to, you wouldn’t care, you’d still utter it.
True yesses are shared at the start of adventures, screamed during orgasms and stammered at altars while tears of joy ruin the most overpriced makeup of a lifetime.
…not sadly whispered while looking down at the floor while a parent scolds you, awkwardly smiled at a co-worker’s creepy jokes, or politely spoken out of social obligation.
So next time, you’re about to say “yes” to something out of social convention, fear, or for any other reason, really. Remind yourself:
“Unless this is something I truly want, my yes is nothing but a million no’s.”
And I’m pretty scared of no’s, let alone a million… so how about we just stick to one simple “no” and call it a day?
Much love,
Pep
P.S. Let’s put your new decision making ability to the test.
I’m running an online practice space for skills like this, called “The Connection Dojo“.
Do you want to be a part of it?
If so, just reply to this email with “yes” and I’ll show you how to get started.