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This week’s post is a little bit of a follow on from last week.

There’s a piece of conventional wisdom that says you should say “No,” more. That whenever you say yes to something you’re actually saying no to other things. It’s all about balance though.

When I was about 5 or 6 I think I used to say no, to a lot more things than I do now.

“Tidy your room.” – No

“Eat your greens.” – No

“Go to bed.” – No

I was also a cunning, or perhaps that should be devious so and so when I wanted to be. I once gained considerable plaudits from my Mum for having such a tidy room after she’d asked me to do something about the disaster zone that was my bedroom. At least that was until she discovered that my solution wasn’t to put everything away where it belonged but to push it all under the bed and pull the covers down so it couldn’t be seen. I think most of my toys were confiscated for that one, or at least all of the ones under the bed were, which in reality was most of them. I also suspect that my Mum considered sawing the legs off of my bed so that I couldn’t pull the same stunt twice.

Nowadays it’s a little bit more straightforward. I’ve been booking a couple of speaking gigs for next year this morning (I talk about allotments, veg growing that sort of thing, if that’s of interest and you’d like a talk obviously do get in touch). Now that Covid rules have been relaxed, most of these talks will take place in village halls in the evening, and involve an element of travel to get there and back again. Each time I say yes to one of these is an evening that I don’t spend at home with my family. Of course I am compensated by a small fee, but sometimes I do wonder if that’s all worth it. I enjoy it though, I like standing up in front of a group and talking – I know I’m weird like that – I also know that the minute I stop enjoying it, I’ll be saying “No,” more.

It’s a bit like being 5 or 6 again. I only used to say no to the things that I didn’t like doing. I really didn’t like tidying my room, I liked it being a mess and having all my toys out so that they were close at hand to play with. Okay it might have been a bit of an obstacle course, but that’s part of the fun too. Until of course you tread on that upturned Lego™ brick and……

40+ years later of course there are some things that I have to say yes to that I don’t enjoy doing. Life and society is like that, otherwise it would be anarchy. Mostly though these are things that we don’t get to have a choice over, or rather there are more stringent punishment than just having your toys confiscated for non-compliance.

At the moment I’m having to give considerable thought to whether I say yes or no to signing a revised contract with a client. They want something more formal than our current arrangement, unfortunately there version is a bit too formal for my liking, so we’re talking about it. Ultimately we’ll reach an end point that either we’re both happy with or one of us (mostly likely me) walks away from. For me this is very much about if I say yes to this, what other things am I going to be saying no to, and is that compromise worth it. I’ll see. If life has taught me anything is just because someone tells you your room has to be tidy, doesn’t always mean they are right.

Thanks for reading.