"Do not say YES when you mean to say NO"

Greetings!

While growing up, there's a song that we used to sing which goes like this;

source
“Wherever you go, wherever you be
Do not say YES when you mean to say NO”

Although, I didn't know the weight of this song back then, but now that I'm grown and have experienced the good and the bad side of life, I now know that the song is more than a song with a deep meaning.

Saying no when we mean to say yes is common among most of us that are shy or let me say those of us that will not want to hurt or offend the other person's feelings. But one thing we don't know is that, we ourselves are hurting ourselves as we will have to inconvenience ourselves to please another person at our own detriment.

However, I'm not saying pleasing others is not good, but it should come at our own detriment. What is the essence of doing good or saying YES at our own loss? In my own view it's not what it is to say YES with regrets in our mind, it wouldn't speak well of our conscience at all.

Having said this, I would like to respond about the topic of the prompt which is all about the power of saying NO.

Saying no is one thing that would have saved many including me, but because of my urge to please many in life, it's now become difficult for me to say no until recently when I said no to a friend of mine who has always been taking me for granted all year long.

Recently, a friend of mine who had always come to me for one assistance or the other, most especially on financial assistance came to me to lend him some amount of money.

When he came, he asked me to lend him a sum of 250k to use for his rent, but I said no and told him I would not be able to borrow him, although, I struggled within myself to say the no, but I just have to stop hurting myself and my feelings to pleasing others who have seen me as gullible as they would think in their mind.

Although, I would have given him the money, but for how he's taken my saying yes to his requests in the past for granted without paying me back what he borrowed from me, I made sure I said no to his request for the first time in the time being and I felt peace in my mind to have turned down his request this time around and one thing that happened after was that, he stopped talking to me and spread bad news around about me.

But even at that, I didn't have to stress myself about what he had said about me as that had not in anyway affected me. Although those that were willing to hear my own part of the story came and I explained to them had happened before by always saying yes to him and how he got disappointed when I said no to him this time around.

So, instead of me getting depressed by his action, I felt fulfilled not to have hurt myself in saying yes to his last request.

In conclusion, saying yes is good, but always make sure you are not saying yes when it means to say no.

This is my entry to the hivereachout weekly prompt.

Thanks for reading.

Picture sourced.