Having an easier time saying “no”
And what made it so hard to say in the first place
My first word was “no,” or more precisely, “noing,” which was how I pronounced it as a baby. My dad’s favorite story of my toddlerhood (not counting the time I managed to swallow an entire lump of wasabi and deafen a sushi restaurant with my shrieks) is about my love of noing. I was trying to build the perfect city out of blocks, but I couldn’t bring about my vision. My frustrated perfectionism led me to destroy the city I had so laboriously created, wading through it like a Godzilla unleashed and flinging blocks as I screamed, “noing noing noing NOING!”
This is a metaphor for human history. Over and over we try to build the perfect civilization and make the Kingdom of Heaven a reality on Earth. Over and over it turns out wretchedly — so we destroy what we have built while screaming “No!” (The more I check the news, the more it looks like Americans on all sides are reaching the “burn it down and start over” stage of frustration.)
“Every time you say no to something, you’re saying yes to something else,” is a piece of calm advice I once read on a leadership blog written by a business consultant. I’ve noticed that perspectives from the business world can often be calmer and less polarized than perspectives from politics.
Our training to fear saying “no,” begins early. It’s very inconvenient for parents when their toddlers say, “no,” to them, especially if they’re saying “no” to deeply necessary things, like bedtime, mealtime, and “pedestrian walk signal is off” time.
However, a deeply embedded habit of saying “yes,” to the adults in charge can be just as unsafe as defiance. There’s a recent trend in parenting about letting kids say “no” to hugging relatives and family friends. The idea is that a habit of saying “no,” to unwanted hugs will empower them to say “no,” or ask for help if someone ever tries to molest them.
I remember watching an episode of Sesame Street where Oscar the Grouch sings an entire song that is just the word “No.” I loved the song at first — but then became worried that I shouldn’t love it. Did my love for the word “No?” make me a grouch? Did my distaste for cooperation with other’s plans make me intrinsically distasteful? Was I dooming myself to life in a trash can?
I must have been around four years old at the time, so my memories are hazy, but I do remember my younger brother Peter exuberantly singing the song to annoy me during my period of emotional turmoil around the validity of the song’s deeper message. Thanks, Peter.
Saying no to sex and romance
It’s hard to say the word “No,” when you know that the word will not be respected. In the dating world, the word “no,” can often be met with various types of emotional coercion and even physical violence. Even assuming someone has a perfectly gracious response to rejection, there’s still the risk of emotionally wounding someone else — traumatic in its own way.
Saying no to more work
In the workplace, the word “no,” can definitely hurt your reputation. You don’t want to be known as someone who refuses to collaborate or who isn’t a go-getter. But people who say “yes,” all the time are stuck between a rock and a hard place: work yourself to death, or become known as a notorious flake. Better a “hard no” than a “flaky yes.” Our conflict avoidance will always slide us in the direction of a “flaky yes.”
Codependency and healthy boundaries
I’ve heard people wield the word “boundaries,” like a sword, using it to justify giving up on relationships or people prematurely. And I’ve heard people clutch at the word “boundaries” like a lifesaver in a shark-infested sea, using it to convince themselves that they’re allowed to defend themselves from unspeakable cruelty. That’s the nature of boundaries. The sword is double edged. It can be used to imprison and isolate yourself away from messy, rewarding, in-depth relationships — or it can be used to protect yourself from flaming, toxic ones.
The problem in general with boundaries is that only powerful people can enforce them when they are broken. And only healthy people know the difference between a boundary that is designed to protect and nurture a relationship, and a boundary that is designed to be one-sided or keep a relationship unequal.
Saying “no,” is a way of saying, “I have power.”
In general, children are fairly powerless, which is why we grow up learning that saying the word “no” doesn’t do us any good. When you are an adult and you are powerful enough to say, “no,” it might not occur to you to use that power. You might be out of practice.
If someone is less powerful than you, you should take their “no” extremely seriously. Think of how much courage it took just to get the word out, to risk the consequences of displeasing someone who could crush you. The powerless naysayer needs to be treated with gentleness and respect.
If someone is more powerful than you, I think it’s all right morally to challenge their boundary. The world gets to be a better place when we challenge power. After all, we should say no to injustice, no to homelessness, no to racism, and no to any number of things that powerful people would probably prefer we say “yes” to in order to make their lives easier.
How I’m connecting to my inner “no”
How am I reconnecting to my inner toddler who had such an easy time screaming, “NOING!” when the world was not what it should be? What helps me is remembering that sometimes “no” can be noble.
And also, if you don’t say “no,” your entire life is shaped by other people’s agendas. What you’re doing is pretty much entirely what other people think you should do.
When you say, “no,” to other people, you’re saying “yes,” to the things you WOULD do even if nobody makes you do them! And those things are the fountain of your deepest inner selfhood.
Where’s the balance?
Of course, some people say, “No,” too much — powerful people who are afraid to venture out of their comfort zones. Those tend to be the people who control our media and public discourse — which is why “just say yes,” narratives get overplayed. Those narratives can be right for the powerful people who choose what stories get played.
It’s ultimately about coming up with the right balance of “no” and “yes” and learning how to do it all in a classy way. How can you be tender and kind in the way you say no? How can you be gracious in the way you accept “no?” Just as a piece of art is formed as much by the blank spaces as it is by the lines, it’s the tastefulness of our no’s that allow our most beautiful yeses to emerge.
