(Article from The Homeschool Minute by Jeneric Jeneralities ):

My mom was one of those people. The kind who did everything anyone asked her:

“Can you come over and help me clean my house since I’m sick?” “Sure!”

“Can you bake 47,000 cookies for the Christmas talent show?” “Sure!”

“Can you babysit my horrid screaming son for seven hours while I shop?” “Sure!”

She never said “no” to anyone (including to us beastly children – which was one of the reasons why we were so beastly). I think she just wanted people to like her. But she always complained at length about being “the type of person who just can’t say no."

It bugs me when I hear people say that. I have no problem saying no. Most of the time, people just say “ok” when you tell them no. I don’t say no to everything, just when I should. The worst case scenario would look something like this:

“Hey Jen, if you’re coming to the church Christmas banquet can you help watch the two year olds?”

“Nope.”

“Really?”

“Truly.”

“Why?”

“What?”

“Why can’t you?”

“Well I could, but I don’t want to.”

“Why not?”

“Why are you asking?”

“Um. Because, I uh - Are you mad?”

“Mad? What? Why in the world would you think that? No I’m not mad. What a silly question.”

Awkward silence. Me, smiling amiably: “So tell me what you and your husband did for your anniversary?”

And that’s that. Even the worst case scenario is totally no biggie. So, the moral of the story is: if you tell everybody that you can do everything then go ahead and do everything and love doing it all, but then don’t complain to everybody else that you’re the type of person who can’t say no. Believe me, the ones asking you would rather have you say “no”.

Try it. You’ll like it.

– Jen Ig