At recess, I didn’t like the jungle gym or its imaginary castle games. The monkey bars were boring. I could always get down with the swings—everyone loves the swings—but the jungle gym wasn’t my scene. So, every day, when a ball was available, I played kickball. By the time I left grade school, I graduated confidently, knowing the game I wanted to play.
In adulthood, where the games vary only in form, I’ve played many. In the process, I’ve spent too much time inside competitions where no matter how hard I worked, I never could understand the joy I saw others experience, and no matter how hard I tried to look like the people who played the game, I never could. I played those games for the wrong reasons and paid the hard costs.
But it’s hard to become wise through another man’s experience, and for me, finally, I’ve left the imaginary castle and fully embraced my game of kickball on the asphalt.
To play games I want to play required the development of one ability: saying no.
Before the discovery my yes’s, I said no, a lot. This is the order. It does not function in reverse.
Each no served as a shovel scooping dirt off my purpose. It was impossible to locate fulfillment while I continued saying yes to everything. The dirt had to stop piling on top of my dreams, hopes, and wants.
Two weeks after my last day of medicine, I got a call from a medicine headhunter with an opportunity. For just one weekend, forty-eight hours of coverage, a local hospital was willing to pay me $5000. By this time, two weeks into my mid-life crisis, it was clear that no golden parachute was waiting to carry me into the land of financial freedom. We needed food and rent. So, I told my wife about the opportunity, and she said nothing, only staring at me with her head cocked to the side, giving me a “Hey Stupid, for $5000 you’re willing to go back to what you just battled eight years to leave?” look.
Thus, I said no. And with that no, medicine was no longer a viable game for me. Fear wanted me to say yes. Security wanted me to say yes. But the soul said no. That’s what we’re looking for: no’s on the soul level. Those rebuffs generate aliveness and confidence. Each subsequent rejection of games I no longer wanted to play drew new lines in the dirt, redefining the boundaries of my next game.
Wielding the power of the no—not always with great power I must say, this is a daily battle—I’ve emerged inside of a game I do love to play. Not because of how it feels when I win but because of how it feels as I play it. Writing and furniture are the labels, but writing and furniture have an infinite number of positions to play on their fields, just as the game of kickball looks different to the outfielder and the pitcher. I’m finding my position on the field through trial and error, one game at a time. And as I play, I discover more of who I am.
There’s nothing wrong with joining games that play for power, influence, money, or social esteem. The only thing wrong with playing those games is when we play them unknowingly, lost to our own wants and calls, afraid to draw our own lines in the dirt.
(Every Friday morning, I write an email of camaraderie, aimed at supporting you to build a life you love. If you’d like to join our community, you can sign up here and receive this week’s email.)
[convertkit form=3846822]
One thought on “Wield the Power of No”