Just Said “NO”

Is it me, or do most people have more rights than I have?

For years I have put other people’s needs and wants before my own.  Said “YES” way more often than “NO”. Actually, I tried to help where I could, often even volunteering to help. And often at the expense of my own projects and things to do. I must admit, I get great pleasure out of doing things for others. A dinner table full of people enjoying a meal that I just cooked, is the greatest joy to me. And if you’d give me a compliment about the food, I would be smiling for a week.

I said “NO” to a Photoshop request the other day and got a few people upset. And I didn’t say “NO” bluntly: I apologized and said I didn’t want to do it because of many personal reasons. I even said I was no longer accepting these sort of request from anyone. Still that wasn’t enough, and what followed was a 30 minute discussion on way I didn’t want to do it. All the cliche arguments were there: “it only takes you 5 minutes to do it”, “you are good a Photoshop, so just do it”, “you’ve done these things before, so why not do it now?”, and many more.

I have to deal with a lot of negative replies to things I ask: colleagues that don’t have time to help me, friends not wanting to go out to a movie with me, people not replying to mails or text messages or phone calls, contractors not wanting to come and do a job even when they know they will get paid, holiday requests that are ignored. And I say “NO” to 1 little request and people get mad with me? Am I only allowed to say “YES”?

Don’t you get it? There are limits to this little boy. I can only do so much. I only wanna do so much.