Afraid to be direct? Constantly flit around the issue, or sidestep the question? Find yourself saying “no, that sounds great” when you really mean “urgh … I’d rather rearrange my facial features with a spanner”? Find that your day is taken up pleasing others and neglecting yourself?
This advice is for you:
SAY WHAT YOU MEAN!
There are only so many hours in the day. (Nominally, 24, but once we’ve arsed around getting things done and clearing up and going to work and changing nappies, the hours that count are fewer than we’d like.)
Make that time count by starting out any course of action with honesty.
If the question is:
Would you like to take a ride in my SUV and spend the afternoon picking wild mushrooms for an organic supper?
The the answer is:
“Yes” OR “No”
depending strictly upon what YOUR answer ACTUALLY is.
“Would you like” should be taken at face value.You either would like or you wouldn’t like. If you can think of nothing greater, then say, “Yes”. If you really don’t want to go fungus-foraging, then say NO.
You can qualify your answer. (N.B. You can do pretty much anything you like). If you’re going to do that, be direct as well.
“The thought of spending the afternoon with you is an attractive one. However, I can think of a dozen things more interesting and exciting than mulching around in the damp for toadstools. Let’s go ice-skating instead, then I’ll buy us pizza and we can throw stones at empty beer bottles.
BRILLIANT! You’ve not only carved out an infinitely more interesting Saturday afternoon for yourself, but you’ve also stamped some of your own character on to the proceedings.
And similarly, if you don’t really fancy going on a mushroom hunt, but you know that doing just that would make your counter-party immeasurably happy, and that is more important to you than ice-skating or pizza or avoiding an afternoon foraging, then, on balance, your answer is: “YES, I would like to do that“, albeit for reasons that weren’t immediately obvious to you.
{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I call that straight talk. Most of the time, we need say our side than to be afraid of not pleasing someone. We are the ones who suffer in the end anyway.
I think you did a nice job balancing the two sides out. I agree with you that when you do what YOU want to do and start being honest with yourself and others it saves EVERYONE TIME. I also think that SELF SATISFACTION is not as eternal as a feeling as PEER SATISFACTION, so sometimes it is better to lay your needs aside and satisfy the other party.
All in all, this have become one of my new websites to read. Thanks.
I LOVED this article.
Co-dependency upon others reactions is dangerous. I’ve learned this finally, after 41 years.
Yes or No are still full sentences!
Follow your intuition.your intuition is the voice of God, the mind of God it is never wrong.
@Howard Douglas Rosbury; Oh blow it out your arse dickhead. Enough with all this bible-thumping shit. Fucking idiot, not everything in this world relates to your “god”, seriously.