In 2020, I remember working on several cutouts for a commitment I'd said yes to three weeks earlier. It was past long midnight and the inconvenience of saying yes has rendered me resentful.
I’ve legitimately said way too many 'yeses' in my lifetime. It’s as though I have a knee-jerk affirmative reaction when someone asks me a favor. Something that I’m not even aware of, until one of my best friends, Sab, whom I invariably ask for help when things blow up, brutally pointed out. "You're a yes girl, Anie. A. YES. GIRL," she said.
I mean, I've said yes to proofreading countless college theses in the wee hours of the night. I've said yes to editing PSDs on my work break for a handful of people. I’ve said yes to drafting and writing heaps of correspondences, memos, and print ads even when I have a lot on my plate. Heck, I even went as far as saying yes to 'overcoming' my introversion as a prerequisite to a mandate I don't even believe in. In my attempt to be a positivity pioneer, I’ve said YES to many THINGS even when they aren't personally serving me. I’ve resolved myself to give, give, give until it left me feeling trapped with no time and energy for myself and the things I’m passionate about.
I'm not a people-pleaser. Good heavens, no. A compulsive yes-human, I supposed, but a well-intentioned one first and foremost, who just wants to be of service to others. You know, just your friendly neighborhood introvert lending a hand to get a need met. It’s one of the best and worst things about me but not exhaustive of everything I am. It didn't help that I've unconsciously portrayed myself as an adult whom others easily assumed had endless energy and capacity to serve. Agreeing to things that I believed were helpful turned out to be more detrimental than good. I've pushed myself past my boundaries and had little understanding of what it was like to take good care of myself. I've faced frequent instances of inevitable burnout due to my tendency to accept numerous requests, failing to realize that all those times I agreed (said YES), I essentially declined (said NO) to my own priorities. It messed up the balance in my life.
Thus, I'm inhaling deeply, taking a substantial pause, and cautiously moving forward with slow but definite steps whilst I master the art of instinctively saying no. After all, the cliché holds true—we only get one life. It has taken me a while to understand that I would rather say no to certain things, where my 'no' means more to me than to the person I’m turning down. I want to have the flexibility to spend additional time on reading, enjoy an extra hour of sleep, retire to bed early, linger in my pajamas a little longer, relish some solitude at home, and perhaps even embrace a sense of slight unproductiveness or 'lazy'. To be able to say no just for the sake of saying no, what a novel experience that would be!
