Few people really know how to say no. After all, no - this is the place where I am no longer ready to move my border. And coexistence with people (in a family, kindergarten, classroom, camp, university, at work) presupposes compromises, that is, continuous shifts of this very border in an unknown direction. It is believed that giving in is good. Entering someone else's position is right. In all languages there is an analogue of our expression "Enter my position."
“What do you feel sorry for?”, “Give in, you’re a girl”, “give way, you’re a boy”, “give way, you’re older”, “give way, you’re smarter”, “greedy beef”, “God ordered to share …
Did you hear your familiar voices? I am.
It is usually very easy for a middle-aged (and older) person to give in: they have completed many years of training. Another thing is worse: it is not clear where the limit is. How many times do you have to give in? How many times to share? How many (times) to lend? When to ask for money back? How to do this so that no one is offended?
A world where people do not know how to refuse, gives birth to parasites and madmen. The parasites keep asking and asking, the madmen keep giving and giving. Some always agree to share, move, let go ahead, lend, give time, turn a blind eye to theft or betrayal. Others get used to asking endlessly, sit in someone else's chair, take someone else's things and someone else's food, and wait for more, loudly pounding a spoon against a bowl. You will probably be surprised if I say now that they are all the same people.
The lack of a timely "no" drives everyone crazy: those who avoid rejection and those who get used to taking too much. If you remember that everything in nature is harmoniously interconnected, then it is clear that homeostasis once puts the eternal giver in front of the need to start taking back: otherwise you will die. What if they took so much from you, and you agreed so much that there was nothing left? To rob the loot, of course.
Parasites and madmen change roles all the time. Today I gave my own, embarrassed to say "no", tomorrow I will take someone else's because "this is normal." After all, anything is considered the norm, if it is … average. “I gave you a loan a month ago or completed your work on a weekend, so I had a“moral right”not to finish mine by throwing it off to you. Oh, I didn't warn you? You too". A world without borders is a world of psychopaths.
“No” is sobering: a border appears. One decides: "enough", and even dares to say it out loud. "No," he says, "there will be no fifteenth cookie (eighteenth time in debt)." The one to whom this is addressed thinks: indeed, you will have to get up and go for the cookies yourself (finally go to work). One learns to refuse, the other learns to do something himself. And both of them now know that there is a limit. And both of them are better off.
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