No - N

Non, Nyet, Nein, Na, Nope, Nee, Nahin... etcetera, so on and so forth.

I know plenty of people who have a hard time with the word. I'm not alone in this.

While I try to be more open and not so quick to say no to something or someone unfamiliar, I tend to struggle more with saying no when I need to and not being manipulated into saying yes. 95% to the benefit solely of the person who won't take my no as the end of the matter.

I'm not talking about someone who legitimately has a crisis out of their control and needs the support. I'm talking about the folks who ALWAYS have a crisis, typically of their own creation because they're bored (aka crave drama), who need to be in charge of you with passive aggressive finesse.

Ahem. Working on a bit of baggage there.

Much like the quest for inner peace or personal happiness, or in fact, exactly in sync with them, being able to say no without apology, explanation or guilt is up to me.

Digging a little deeper beneath the surface of people pleasing, going beyond the layer of fear of rejection and replacement is the fear of missing out or being left out. I don't want to miss the party. I don't want to be left out of the fun. Even if whatever is happening isn't something I would have chosen to be a part of.

This is my own problem to work out, not someone else's. And I'm at the stage where I'm comfortable with my detachment from needing extraneous people's acceptance. I worried about it for a while, this current state of not giving a damn about being pulled hither and thither (Triple word score, because I said so.). And I sat with it. And I ruminated. And despite my inner nag telling me I'm being an asshole, I realized that I still have empathy and wish people well and all that jazz. My not-give-a-damn about same shit, different day is my mind's way of saying: N-O. And if people who need an audience for their histrionics (The coffee is strong today. Mmmm, behold the force!) are upset about that, THAT is their problem. Because it's no longer mine. Which is a beautiful and peaceful thing.

And I promise, I used the word and so much on purpose.