It's Okay To Say No
Just when you think life has finished throwing you around and
unraveling you to your core, you realize that you are only halfway
through your period of transformation. A month ago, I thought I'd
finished re-evaluating my life and redirecting it back on track.
Boy, was I WRONG. I have no accepted the fact that I know practically nothing and that all my previous conceptions of my self-image, beliefs, values, ambitions, and choices were all somewhat disillusioned.
Becoming truly self-aware is a difficult and uncomfortable process. It requires the courage to confront yourself as you are, warts and all, and to be 100% honest with accepting your flaws as they are, as well as how they have developed and grown over time along with you. Maybe for a long time, you'll procrastinate taking this closer look at yourself and your life, but eventually life simply says, "enough!" and will force you to undergo this introspection with the intervention of some dramatic crisis.
Something I want to talk about in this post is something I'm sure people other than me struggle with as well, and that's saying "no". I realized that for a long time I've still been carrying the guilt from saying no to certain people in my life. I've turned my back on friends, significant others, and even family when I felt like they weren't enhancing my life or providing me with the emotional fulfillment I needed. One would think that this is the right thing, the smart thing to do in regards to the quality of my life. I think, deep down, I know it is. Yet layered on top of that knowledge are thoughts of self-loathing, guilt, and even regret. Why? The simple, illogical, irrational reason is that I cared about those people I said no to. All of them were people who I valued deeply and who taught me many things about life and myself. I wanted to make them happy, and that was just about the opposite of me saying "no" to certain things they did. Because most of the time, those things they did were just a result and consequence of the type of people they were.
The main obstacle in overcoming my guilt over ending those relationships and prioritizing myself is that I forget that while they did bring goodness into my life, the bad parts of those relationships eventually outweighed that goodness, and instead of remembering that I merely focus on the big, fat "WHAT IF". WHAT IF I sucked it up and kept up those relationships; would we still be good friends now? WHAT IF we just talked about the issues we had? WHAT IF it was meant to be, but I fucked up by putting myself first and cutting them out of my life?
If it was meant to be...I think it would be. I think they would still be here in my life and I in theirs. My parents often tell me about this idea in Chinese culture that everyone's life is half choice and half fate. We can make our own choices and work towards the job, relationship, and life we want, but sadly, that only goes so far. The rest is up to fate. I think that's just the answer to that frustrating, pesky "what if". In the present, there really is no "if". There is only reality, and the reality is that it didn't work out.
Probing deeper into that guilt I feel, I can honestly say I wanted very much for it to work out. I really did try to sustain those relationships, whether it was by making myself smaller or enduring injustices and emotional abuse or relinquishing parts of myself to make the other person happy. I tried to be kind and understanding and forgiving. But maybe fate knows better about what I need and deserve in my life than I do. Maybe unlike me, fate knows the exact difference between what I want and what I actually need.
Anyway, at the end of this long, reflective ramble about my past, the gist of what I'm trying to say is this: I've narrowed the source of my inability to fully let go of my past to my shaky resolve when saying no to people and standing up for myself. To this day, I feel as if all the hurt and bad things that happened were my fault. So now that I understand where this inner turmoil is coming from, maybe it's about time to forgive myself for all the times I hurt and gave up on people I loved, because I deserve love, too. And as much as it sucks, maybe the love they could give me wasn't the kind of love I needed.
Boy, was I WRONG. I have no accepted the fact that I know practically nothing and that all my previous conceptions of my self-image, beliefs, values, ambitions, and choices were all somewhat disillusioned.
Becoming truly self-aware is a difficult and uncomfortable process. It requires the courage to confront yourself as you are, warts and all, and to be 100% honest with accepting your flaws as they are, as well as how they have developed and grown over time along with you. Maybe for a long time, you'll procrastinate taking this closer look at yourself and your life, but eventually life simply says, "enough!" and will force you to undergo this introspection with the intervention of some dramatic crisis.
Something I want to talk about in this post is something I'm sure people other than me struggle with as well, and that's saying "no". I realized that for a long time I've still been carrying the guilt from saying no to certain people in my life. I've turned my back on friends, significant others, and even family when I felt like they weren't enhancing my life or providing me with the emotional fulfillment I needed. One would think that this is the right thing, the smart thing to do in regards to the quality of my life. I think, deep down, I know it is. Yet layered on top of that knowledge are thoughts of self-loathing, guilt, and even regret. Why? The simple, illogical, irrational reason is that I cared about those people I said no to. All of them were people who I valued deeply and who taught me many things about life and myself. I wanted to make them happy, and that was just about the opposite of me saying "no" to certain things they did. Because most of the time, those things they did were just a result and consequence of the type of people they were.
The main obstacle in overcoming my guilt over ending those relationships and prioritizing myself is that I forget that while they did bring goodness into my life, the bad parts of those relationships eventually outweighed that goodness, and instead of remembering that I merely focus on the big, fat "WHAT IF". WHAT IF I sucked it up and kept up those relationships; would we still be good friends now? WHAT IF we just talked about the issues we had? WHAT IF it was meant to be, but I fucked up by putting myself first and cutting them out of my life?
If it was meant to be...I think it would be. I think they would still be here in my life and I in theirs. My parents often tell me about this idea in Chinese culture that everyone's life is half choice and half fate. We can make our own choices and work towards the job, relationship, and life we want, but sadly, that only goes so far. The rest is up to fate. I think that's just the answer to that frustrating, pesky "what if". In the present, there really is no "if". There is only reality, and the reality is that it didn't work out.
Probing deeper into that guilt I feel, I can honestly say I wanted very much for it to work out. I really did try to sustain those relationships, whether it was by making myself smaller or enduring injustices and emotional abuse or relinquishing parts of myself to make the other person happy. I tried to be kind and understanding and forgiving. But maybe fate knows better about what I need and deserve in my life than I do. Maybe unlike me, fate knows the exact difference between what I want and what I actually need.
Anyway, at the end of this long, reflective ramble about my past, the gist of what I'm trying to say is this: I've narrowed the source of my inability to fully let go of my past to my shaky resolve when saying no to people and standing up for myself. To this day, I feel as if all the hurt and bad things that happened were my fault. So now that I understand where this inner turmoil is coming from, maybe it's about time to forgive myself for all the times I hurt and gave up on people I loved, because I deserve love, too. And as much as it sucks, maybe the love they could give me wasn't the kind of love I needed.
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