My problem with no is that I have a problem saying no. I am like the Chinese language, which I am told does not have any word equivalent for NO.
I get this really guilty feeling if I am even thinking of saying no. It causes me no end of trouble with friends and relatives, but think of what I get into when it comes to work.
However busy I am, I cannot say no when someone comes to me for help. I might qualify it by saying I shall do it later, but I almost always end up doing quite a bit of their work.
And I do get surprised and yes!.. shocked, even insulted when I am told no.
When I asked a colleague to help out another, he said NO, and I was shocked and insulted. The colleague snapped at me saying that he had a right to say no. Logically I know that to be true, but in his place, I might have said sorry, I am busy or Sorry, I don’t know or most probably helped the person out. Even in the few cases I say no, I always qualify it with a reason or an alternative, but I can never just say NO
Sigh! I must gird myself to say the dreaded word and not feel anything but relief
2 comments:
Sanju, blame our up-bringing for this. We have always been taught to be polite and nice to people and not get them upset - and we understand that saying NO was a big NO NO. Hence we rather beat round the busy and say "Sorry,Im busy" or "I'll try to do it" instead of just saying No.
Hey! check - http://rushmechatter.blogspot.com/2010/08/saying-no-big-no-no.html
I re-read your post and found that mostly our thoughts and vocabulary are very much similar :-(
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