It's Important to Say No

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It's Important to Say No

By Danson Mwaniki MDiv.

We all find ourselves at times in situations in which it is difficult to say no. For instance, we’ve planned to go skiing over Thanksgiving and our parents write us saying how much they’d like us to have Thanksgiving dinner with the family. Our boss asks us to work overtime and we have plans for that evening. A professor asks if we can do some extra work for him on a research project he’s working on. We have just bought a new sweater and a friend asks if she can borrow it. Someone asks us out that we don’t want to go out with.

If we repeatedly find ourselves acquiescing or agreeing to these types of requests and feeling unhappy about it we might want to look at some reasons why we say yes when we prefer to say no. We might be fearing the loss of the relationship or be afraid of damaging the relationship in some way. So we end up treating the relationship as fragile and dependent on our constant compliance.

Like so many people, we may feel guilty about saying no since we have been taught to go out of our way to avoid hurting people’s feelings. So we end up feeling responsible for the other person’s feelings as if their happiness depends on our agreeing. This takes away their right to be responsible for their own feelings. We might feel we are bad people and not becoming of good christians if we refuse - selfish and self-centered. We have been taught the virtue of self-sacrifice and self-denial. So we end up being more concerned and more considerate of others than we are of ourselves. We may also feel flattered at being asked. It makes us feel important and we are afraid if we say no this time we will never be asked again. These are emotional hooks that can interfere with our freedom of action.

Christians are taught to be nurturing and caring, which is a good thing up to a point. For many saints, saying “Yes” is simply an ingrained habit; for others, it’s an addiction. Christians think of the word “NO” as a negative and fear that using it will jeopardize a relationship or that their friends will think them selfish. Some Christians fear they will be left out of the group if they say “NO” or that their Christian friends will think they are uncaring or not spiritual. Most Christians tend to be people-pleasers and agree to avoid confrontation and keep the peace. At times, saying “NO” is the path of least resistance, but the irony is that the fallout from a refusal is rarely as dramatic or harmful as one imagines.

If we can change our attitude about requests from friends to thinking “NO,” before we say-- “Yes, sure I’ll do that for you. No problem” --our life will be a lot less complicated and pressured. It helps for Christians to learn how to create boundaries and keeps others from crossing them. Saying “Yes” can create anxiety and stress and, in extreme cases, depression. Agreeing too often also can lead to overwork, to being overwhelmed, and to exhaustion.

One of the real dangers in saying “Yes” to friends when we would rather say “NO” is that we not only become angry with ourselves, but start to resent those friends who ask for favors we don’t want to or really have the time to do. Also, if you say “Yes” indiscriminately, you may not have time for those you want to and/or really need to help. Christian friends who ask favors with annoying frequency (and we almost all have them) are the ones you want to be wary of and learn how to refuse.

Some Christians have little regard for what’s on your plate; their main concern is their own agenda. We may have those sweet talking con artists. They will tell you that you do whatever they needs done better. We need to say “NO” to these and other friends who take advantage of our good nature and inability to refuse them. The activities that we built our friendship around (borrowing each other’s apparatus, asking for advice, pulling each other out of a jam) may quickly become bothersome or even down-right unbearable, if they are not kept in check.

We need to look for warning signs that our friendship is unbalanced. When it feels one-way, with us doing all the giving to our friends, it is more than okay, it’s imperative that we begin to say “NO” to protect ourselves. We only have a limited amount of physical and emotional energy and there are periods we can’t be there for friends without sacrificing our own physical health or emotional well-being. Do not fear to say NO