You have to learn to say no to many good things if you want to say yes to many great things
Recently, I have found myself having trouble saying no to people. Of course, when push comes to shove, I know when to stand my ground when I strongly believe in something, but the main problem lies in saying no to good things. In order to explore this, I will take you on a journey of meditation where I explore this side of myself for the first time. That’s right, it’s time for a certified “Paul character arc”!
To start off this series of posts, I would like to define my problem and identify some examples. From there, I will come to term with the fact that this is a problem.
In general, I can show some real puppy behaviour in terms of my interests. I’m fascinated by many different facets of life, and my love runs strong through my veins. Through this, I can get excited by things easily. Especially projects, new skills to learn or subjects to study suffer from this excitement, as they become a little too much for me to handle. My love for other people is also a strong factor in this, and I wish I were able to say no to people more often so that I can leave more energy and time for even greater and better things.
Let’s look at a concrete example. During last summer vacation, I have found that through my people pleasing nature, I had trouble saying no to my brother when it came to deciding what we were going to do. Through my love for my brother, I tried to make sure everything was enjoyable FOR HIM, but I also forgot about my own needs sometimes. In my opinion, it is not a sign of strength but of complacency and sloth that I did not figure out a way to get what I want. After all, it’s easier to just go along with what other people want, as then you can be sure nobody but you turns out disappointed. Of course, your own disappointment is in your own control, making it easier to deal with.
Another problem I’ve had is in deciding what to focus my time on. Many different things catch my interest all the time, and I only have so much time in a day. Last period at uni, I suffered from my inability to say no. Besides wanting to start working on my blog, I also partook in 4 individual courses at uni, started working my job at Simplex, tried to learn programming in Go and worked on developing a game in C++. I was not able to finish these last two projects, and my mental health suffered slightly because of them. It would have been better to start by saying no to the last two projects, to then only take them on once I found that I could handle the workload. Of course, at the time I was so enthusiastic about them that I didn’t think to do that.
So there we have it. Writing down these concrete examples, I can recognise the problem even better. Reviewing these examples, I can also see that I have fallen into the same traps more recently. Starting from now, I should try to become more aware of these patterns and behaviours, such that I can prevent stacking too much hay next time around. From here on out, I will meditate on ways to become more aware of this behaviour, ways to prevent this behaviour, ways to solve problems this behaviour causes, the effects of changing my behaviour and finally finding internal balance.
Maybe the social and practical problem should even be treated seperately. Well, no need to figure everything out our first time. I’ve got plenty of time to meditate, and there is no rush. “The snake which cannot cast off its skin has to die. Likewise, the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.” This quote from Nietzsche seems like a good representation of my opinions on self-contradiction. One must strive to act consistently, but consistent opinion is not a requirement.