No

 It's often harder to say 'no' than 'yes'. 

Last night I had some friends over for wine and cheese however I'd decided not to drink beforehand. The shock on their face and the disappointment in their eyes as I told them, along with their pleas for me to join, instantly flipped my decision to a 'maybe'. I happened to leave the room to get something and in the aloneness was able to recommit to not drinking (I realise this is actually a good trick to remove external influence and find real choice). But it was a close one. However I sit here proud of that 'no'. 

Yesterday a friend of mine shared how difficult it was to decline a dinner invitation from his mother who refused to accept 'no'. And how his personal life was wrought with an endless cycle of yes-manning and over-committing and disappointing and apologizing.

But it seems these moments of pressure and momentum and social norms and expectations create a tsunami of directional force towards 'yes'. We also live in a society which encourages polite questions which almost cannot be refused. I have never been at a meal and 'asked' someone to pass the jug of water and gotten a serious refusal. But to tell them to pass it would be considered rude. Is this 'politeness' the root cause of our tendency to Yes?

Interestingly, in Hebrew, using command sentence structures is the default way to ask for things (if you want to be polite you can add a 'please' at the end). Perhaps this has a correlation with the stereotypical stubborn, strong willed Israeli.

It seems clear to me that the resistance to 'No' is fundamentally disempowering, allowing others to control your life. I wonder where I could add more 'No' to unlock more freedom in my life.