For years i deluded myself into believing things like Jack’s potluck involved just a few hours on Saturday night, so it was no big deal. But if you really don’t want to do it, it can be a big deal.
And it’s not just the four or five hours you spend at Jack’s that get lost by doing things you don’t want to do; it’s all the time leading up to it, and often the time and energy you spend recovering from it as well.
Let’s say you’ve gotten your week simplified to a point where you can spend Saturday and Sunday simply having a quiet, contemplative time getting in touch with your creativity, and painting.
Saturday comes and you’ve got your canvas set up, and you start thinking about this potluck you really don’t want to go to. Just thinking about it is an annoyance and an energy drain. Then you realize you don’t have anything on hand for the salad Jack asked you to bring. So at some point you have to stop painting, clean up, and run out to the store to get the salad fixings; then you have to make the salad.
Then you have to decide what to wear.
Then you have to get ready. Then you have to go. You’ve already spent at least several hours, and you haven’t even gotten there.
By the time the evening is over, you’ve eaten a little too much, and you’ve had too much to drink. You have some coffee to sober you up for the ride home, and then you don’t sleep well Saturday night because of the caffeine.
You wake up Sunday feeling groggy because of the lack of sleep, and you have a headache because you drank too much. You feel lousy all day, and there goes the painting.
You’ve lost part of the day Saturday, all of Saturday evening, and a good deal of Sunday, because you didn’t say no to something you didn’t want to do in the first place.
As you begin to work on inner simplicity, you’ll start to become aware of the number of things you do that you don’t want to do. You’ll begin to realize how much that detracts from the time you want to spend on your own growth. You may not be able to stop doing everything you don’t want to do. But you’ll get to the point where the next time Jack calls, you’ll just say no.