“Nah. Nope. No Thanks. I’ll pass.”
We spend so much time and invest too much energy doing things that are expected of us.
No, I don’t want to work 40 hours a week. I am not interested in your organized religion. I shouldn’t have gone to college and spent 4 years and 30k running around like a freshly beheaded chicken (sorry for the visual but that’s exactly how I felt.) If I still had to, I should have stuck to music and writing. Not teaching or nursing or business or Public Relations.
No. I’m not having kids. I’ll do what I want with the body that I inhabit.
I’m skipping holidays. I don’t care about Christmas. Work meetings are a waste of time. If it has to do with business and it can’t be done in an email, I’m most likely not interested. I hate your dress code and I’m not watering my lawn.
That grass is yellow and it’s fucking fine.
What would happen if we just really decided to put our foot down? I’m not saying that we should say no out of fear, laziness or apathy (though in some circumstances, those are absolutely legitimate reasons). We should say no out of principle.
Because something doesn’t align with our values.
Because we’re listening to our intuition when something feels off.
Because our gut tells us to put our damn running shoes on and GTFO.
We should say no because we question the motivation behind statements and actions and we trust ourselves enough to make the best judgement based on the situation at hand.
We should say no because we respect our yes. Because we only have so many chances in our lifetime to make that yes truly worth it.
How can we honor ourselves more often and more intentionally?
Walk into your bathroom and up to your mirror, turn down the lights and say “no” ten times while spinning clockwise. No spooky apparition will appear in front of you but at least you had a minute to yourself.
Think about it. Or just tell me to fuck off and you are now well on your way.
