Value Your Choices

The car doors unlocked and just as I was about to leave a friend ran up behind me and tugged at my sleeve, “You have to come on Saturday”, he insisted once again to the reunion planed that week. I once again said no without fearing to displease him as I had already reviewed all the things I have planned to do on Saturday and to be honest, I had no time for a dinner party. However, a part of me wanted to say yes for the sake of not displeasing him, for the sake of not creating hard feelings but I didn’t. “I’m sorry” I told him, as I sat in my car and left. I knew he was probably forming all sorts of opinions about me, but I’ve done enough personal development work to not take it personally.

This act of choosing what you want to do requires the willingness to leave that what you don’t want to do. If I want to choose to spend time with my daughter, I will have to let go spending time out with my friends. If you choose marriage to be an important part of your life, one will have to reject haram relationships. The point is, in order to value something, you must be willing to let go everything else that is not that ‘something’.

However, people in their efforts to being liked by everyone or trying to please all those around them can never say ‘no’. They never say no to their family, friends or even boss. And it is because they refuse to say no to less important things, they live a value-less driven by other people. Now let’s turn that around, people who say no to unimportant things, or the jobs they don’t want to do, or the relationships they don’t want to be in, or the places they don’t want to go, end up living a more valuable and a healthy life as they can than say yes to things and jobs they want to do and the relationships they want to be in. They can use their resources and time to focus on the things they like. People go so far in pleasing others and making them happy, that they forget what they believe and value them to be.

If you want to live a happier, productive and a successful life, you need to learn how to say no to somethings. Rejecting things define your values. For example, if you want to be religious, you need to let go all things that goes against the religion; it’s as simple as that. So, learn to say no, value yourself, value the things you like and want; it definitely will not be easy to do, but with belief and practice, you can get the hang of it. CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Warren Buffet said, ”

The difference between successful people and the very successful people are that very successful people say no to almost everything.

”

Author: Hassan Sajjad