Suddenly Single - The Power of No

 Well here I am the middle of the night or early morning and uh you know basically I got my night's worth of sleep so now I'm just going to talk a little bit about the power of no when is it okay to say no that's really the question that goes through my mind when we were married Tess and I you know we made good friends we love our friends but we didn't want to get together every day for everything and Tess was especially that way and so you know it would be well when we're invited to do something andwe kind of just don't want to do it can we say no is it okay to say no and so you know we would come up with different reasons oh my gosh you know she's not feeling well I mean I guess you could say that I don't even know we basically you know know um that the we but the weather okay the weather was bad or whatever cuz this came up yesterday and that's really kind of what's on my mind the point is when we were married I even said the test part of our ability to say no to people is that we have each other so that youknow even though we said no to going out with the group we can sit here and kind of talk to each other and do whatever we want to do watch TV and what have you but we have each other but you know being alone and being single being by myself is it even riskier when when it was Tess it would be like well what is the risk are they going to hate us are we not going to have any friends anymore you know what's going to happen if we say no so now I'm in the same boat kind of but I'm all by myself but youknow I'm I'm not lonely I'm not literally not feeling bad being alone now I think I would if I was being rejected if I had no friends and I if I had nobody calling on me to do anything but you know the point is that doesn't mean I want to do everything all the time and you feel like you should I mean it you feel like oh my gosh how do I say no and what kind of excuse can I come up with that's going to be legitimate other than just saying flat no so it's it's a problem I mean it's an issue and I don'tmean to offend anybody I certainly don't want them to ignore me or you know say well you don't want to you know the heck with him we don't we don't need him anymore you don't want that but at the same time you don't want to be a complete uh you know yes man or whatever so there are times when you want to hike and there's times when you don't want to hike there's times when you want to go out for dinner there's other times when you don't or go to a I don't know play a movie whatever the case may be be and sofrom my point of view and I'm you know just sounding things out here but is it okay to say no and is it okay to say no and for both parties to not feel rejected in other words if I ask somebody if they want to do something and they say well I can't do it now you know thanks but no thanks whatever I mean for me I'm sensitive too so you know it wouldn't take me two or three times especially if I was you know asking a lady to do something and she said no well pretty much depending on how she said it that'd be the end of itright there but when it comes to friends I don't really feel that way it's like you know okay so we don't do it this week or whatever and uh so that's kind of what I'm trying to say here is that I really really really appreciate my friends I like doing stuff together I like going places now one of these things cuz I you know try to keep these under 10 minutes but you know I'm getting older I'm getting I'm not feeble but I don't like driving at night I can drive at night my eyesight is pretty good but yet and still I'm notcomfortable driving at night especially in rainy weather and uh so I don't want to do it that's my choice I don't want to choose it after I run into a telephone pole you know or have an accident or oh well now I can't drive no I want to make that choice while it is my choice just in the you know air in the side of safety and so uh that's what I want to do that's how I do it now people will very kindly say oh you know you want me we can pick you up you want me to pick you up no I don't want you to pick me upI'm not asking for a ride I'm not asking for you to solve the situation for me or fix it I'm just saying I don't want to drive at night now ironically since I put that kind of rule out there uh I've ended up doing it more more often than I want because of situations and uh you know I was out there wherever I was hiking with chip and carry North Carolina 2 or 3 hours away uh Zeke wouldn't settle down I ended up leaving the hotel at 3 3: in the morning and driving home in the middle of the night but I Justified thatwith thinking well the traffic's probably low and it was but you know that's the irony of it is that once you verbalize something it's almost like now it's bound to happen so that's what the situation is you know I'm I'm pretty damn healthy I'm very capable of doing things but um I sometimes I just don't want to do it and not today and not in the moment and I would like to know if it's okay to say no without offending anybody and that's kind of my thought today and tonight and I hope that I can do that thatskillfully to where I do certainly respect their friendship their wishes but there are times when you just don't want to do whatever it is that's going on and so on that I'll sign off