‘No’ and the Disgusting Self Image...

There are many things we want to ask of other people. We want to ask for a job, for money, a second chance, an opportunity, a kiss.

But we often don’t ask because of The Terror of a ‘No’.

So, Why should a ‘No’ – such a small and innocuous word sound to be so painful, so hard to hear?

Simply, because it’s not a case of trying not to hear a ‘NO’.

What we are trying to not hear is something quite different:

All of us - at different levels- have access to a Disgusting Self Image; a repertoire of all the most broken, flawed, embarrassing, and weak sides of who we are.

It’s precisely this self-image that is awoken and engaged whenever people say ‘No’ to us.

We’re not hearing ‘No’ – we’d be fine if we were.

We’re hearing instead: you’re arrogant, laughable, idiot, delusional, clumsy, weird, crazy, ...

When people say No, they’re not thinking about us.

Here is the only reason why people ever say No:

The real reason people say no is that it doesn’t fit in with their plans. They are not thinking about our stupidest deeds, of the nicknames people called us at school or of what we get up for late at night.

That is in our heads; not theirs.

They are just worried about their plans.

We lose out on some consoling insights when we omit to bring our own experience of what we felt when we said ‘No’ to people.

We said ‘No’ not because we hated them; we did it for a simple and obvious reason: it didn’t fit in with our plans.

All of us are fundamentally ignorant of other people’s plans.

We just can’t really tell whether others might say yes or no because we don’t have access to their projects and visions.

We are attempting to overcome our lack of data by foreclosing in a pessimistic direction. But we should, instead, simply try to get more data – by asking.

We should respond to ignorance with curiosity, not despair.

And in any case, not asking is not cost-free.

Certainly, we are avoiding the pain of rejection; but we are settling for something that is more insidious and troubling: a lack of opportunity. Not asking life for something means implicitly asking it for something else, failure from the outset. And this is especially sad because life is so very short.

What we should really be scared of is not a ‘NO’, but of reaching our deathbeds unfulfilled or missing opportunity to reach new horizons.

We should ask and it's totally okay if we hear a "NO" over and over.