I have a friend, who when asked to do something she is not interested in, simply says, "Thanks, but I don't think that really sounds like something I would be interested in."
At first, that phrase seemed totally foreign to me. Crazy foreign. I couldn't imagine looking at someone, or even texting for that matter, something like that. Wouldn't the person be offended? Upset even?
I have always been the type of person to worry about hurting someone else's feelings. Overboard even, to the point that I over analyze things I have said hoping they weren't possibly taken the wrong way. Sometimes it's exhausting, but I can't stand thinking I have ever accidentally offended someone.
Luckily, as I have gotten older, I have realized that saying no to someTHING is not saying no to someONE.
I remember once being asked to go to a concert. I really didn't want to go. It was expensive and wasn't really a group I cared that much about. But I didn't really know how to get out of it without a valid excuse. I was certainly free that night. It was with friends, and I was happy to be included. I had no other plans. So I went. What was I going to say? That I appreciate being asked but I wasn't really interested in seeing that concert?
Ummmm...yes!
I totally could have. And should have. But I didn't. I forked over the money, and sat there thinking the sound would have been just as good if I watched them in concert on a big screen with surround sound, and could have perhaps used the money to get a new outfit that I could enjoy for much longer than the two hours the concert lasted.
But, at the time, I hadn't learned or matured enough to realize these words that I just heard the other day uttered by Lysa Terkeurst of Proverbs 31 Ministries.
She says,
" Do not confuse the demand to love with the disease to please."
I admit that many times my "spread too thin" times are totally of my own making. My own ego.
"Oh my goodness, they asked me to (insert task). I should really be honored they asked me. Honored they thought of me to do this! I have to say yes!"
Many times the things we are honored to accept in a moment of flattery, are the things that later give us much stress and turmoil as we snap at our husbands, "Why on EARTH did I ever agree to do this?!?!?"
Another thing I have had to learn is the power to think things through and not get caught up in the moment. One year, the same year I decided to start substitute teaching, I also volunteered (yes, happily volunteered) to be room mom for both of my boys.
It was all fine and dandy until the Christmas parties rolled around, and I worked myself into a Pinterest and crafting stupor.
See, here is what I've learned. Sometimes I say yes to things if I'm able to squeeze them in. But what I need to stop and think is...yes, I can fit that in. But if I do, will we have enough time to relax? Will there still be time to fit in a family movie night? Will there be enough time to just be?
Just because I CAN fit something in, does not mean I should.
We have been lied to all these years. We CANNOT have it all. It is NOT possible. You cannot have a breakneck career, and be a stay-at-home mom, and spend enough quality time with your kids and husband, and workout an hour a day, and cook elaborate meals, and spend time with friends, and go on enough dates with your husband, and have a clean house, and have a hobby, and volunteer, and spend enough time reading and sleeping and vacationing, etc. It just isn't humanly possible. There are not enough hours in a day to do everything "they" say we are supposed to do.
We have to choose which things are the most important and let the other things go.
I guess we can have it all, just not at the SAME time.
I have decided this new school year to set realistic ideals. I'm trying to figure out what's most important, make those things a priority, and learn how to say "no thank you" for now to the rest.
It's not easy to do, but a must for my sanity. When, and more importantly WHY, did we start glorifying busy?
We only get one life. Why would we want to play it at warp speed?
My goal is to learn to respectfully say no to little things that take away from the bigger things.
I guess the old phrase "can't see the forest for the trees" might apply here.
I will try to learn to say "no thank you" more, so I can just "be" more.
Those 1950s people who used to say, "I can't, I have to wash my hair," may have actually been brilliant.
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