I can still recall the feeling in my body as I spat out my first “No” in response to an invitation for an event I had no intention of attending. I told myself many times that honesty is the better route, as opposed to the dreadful “maybe” or “I’ll check my schedule”. There’s no need to check my schedule, and there’s no “maybe”. This was a hard No that was going to come out sooner or later; preferably sooner. This one, short, two letter word, which can be understood in several different languages, is statistically the most difficult word to say (and mean it). Now, this has no connection to the “no” that our children say to us daily when asked to do *just about anything*, this refers to the strong compounding NO that we as adults are often scared to say, although we feel the need to. Should we take a page out of our children’s theory; do I wish we could speak authentically and purely like our children – if I don’t want something I say no? Well, in theory yes, in practice no, but that’s an entirely different form of psychological analysis we’d have to dive into,…
