LEARNING TO SAY NO
Most recently, I have often heard the quote, “say no more often than you say yes”, which at first I didn’t totally get. Being a young woman who constantly checks social media equals being bombarded by an abundance of quotes like, “YOLO”, and “Yes is more”; I felt constantly pressured to always do the fun thing, the cool thing, until one day I realised - why the fuck do I never even consider what I want to do??? When I actually thought about how often I considered what I actually wanted to do, the result was alarming - I never did.
The focus of the double-edged sword that is ‘inspirational’ social media accounts, is forever on seizing the moment, and acting now, with a ‘fuck the consequences’ sort of attitude. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not knocking living in the moment and spontaneity (if anything these are things I’m actually working on doing more often myself), but what is the harm in being chill and taking the time to actually engage your brain? What if I don’t want to ‘live everyday as if it’s my last’, saying yes to going out, getting smashed and wasting money - what if I want to say no??? When applied to taking calculated risks and making choices for our own happiness the YOLO approach is fab - but the way it’s often used is to shame people into doing the ‘fun thing’, or rather what someone else considers ‘the fun thing’ - because heaven forbid anyone thought we were boring.
Staying in, and spending time alone journalling or reading isn’t boring; if you want to do it, then do it. Own your choices with the confidence they deserve. Who gives a fuck if you missed a night out; everyone was just wasting money on cheap vodka, getting perved on by ugly boys, and passively aggressively elbowing their way through a sweaty club anyway.
Don’t be ‘bore-shamed’ into saying yes to something you actually want to say no to. The fear of FOMO may be pushing you towards submission, but actually (and I’m talking from personal experience here), doing the thing you truly want to do is good for you. You’ll feel a clarity of mind, and a positivity that would have other wise given way to feelings of displacement and unhappiness if you’d have answered differently. Whether its staying in with Netflix over getting wasted in a club, or making different plans despite what everyone else is doing - if you constantly find yourself going along with the flow and feeling dissatisfied, change your answer to ‘no’ and watch your state of mind, and perception of self-worth, change along with it.
