When i was a young girl growing up in Kansas, I would accept invitations to my friends’ birthday parties. But when the day of the party arrived, I invariably didn’t want to go. My mother would always say to me, “Oh, Elaine, just go. You know you always have a good time.” So I would go, and mother was right: I always had a good time.
It took me years to figure out that I always had a good time because I’m the type of person who wouldn’t spend four or five hours somewhere having a bad time. No doubt you’re that type of person, too.
When your friend Jack catches you off guard and invites you to his potluck dinner on Saturday night, you agree to go because you didn’t have anything specific planned and you didn’t have an excuse ready. So you end up going.
And often you have a good time. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that you wouldn’t rather have been doing something else, like sitting at home contemplating the meaning of life, or just relaxing and doing nothing.
When Gibbs and I started to simplify our lives we took a look at all the things we did either because we said we’d do them—like going to Jack’s potluck—or because we felt we should do them—like heading up the fund-raising committee for a group we belonged to—and we stopped doing them. It took us a while, but we finally learned to just say no.
When I suggested this to my friend, Peter, he said, “But if I start saying no to people, they’ll stop asking me to join them.”
When I pointed out that these were people he didn’t want to go out with anyway, he said, “Yes, but I want them to ask me.”
Obviously, you’ve got to reach the point where your desire to not go is stronger than your wish to be included.
As you begin to listen to your inner voice, you’ll start to get a feel for the situations that keep you from being in touch with what you really want to do and who you really want to be. Then you can begin gracefully to avoid them.
You reach a point where you have to be firm, and simply say no those distractions. Your social life may go down the tubes, but this may be just what you need so you can work on your inner growth and create the time and the energy to do the things you really want to do.