How to be happy * Say No

Well, today is a happy day for me. Matt is doing a guest post and it means I can take the day off! 

Woo hoo! thanks sweetheart. I hope you enjoy some of Matt's thoughts in relation to happiness.

Hi, I am Matt, Naomi’s husband and if you want to see my first and only secret post click here. 

This time I thought I would try a guest post to support Naomi with her crazy ambition to write a whole month worth of posts on Happiness. When she gets a good idea, she goes for it. Then she asks herself – can I really do all that? That’s where I come in. To show reassurance, support and time, these are three ingredients I try to add to our relationship. 

Really what I want to say is “No, you can’t do it”, but usually it is too late and I believe my role is to give her wings to fly, not hold her down with all the doubts that we already tell ourselves.

Early in our courting I said to Naomi, “I am a YES man!” Being a YES man was only in relation to saying YES to helping people and serving opportunities. You know, like, ‘Who will volunteer?’ … ME… you can count on me. When I was single I could help people and do all kinds of things, when and however long I wanted to do them. So, whenever I got asked to do something, I would consider my time and circumstances and typically would say YES. It was only at my inconvenience and possible cost. If I had little to live off for a couple of days, only I had to worry about it, so I just made some simple sacrifices if I needed to.

Then I got married. I now had more to consider and Naomi was very patient in teaching me some priorities in relation to my enthusiastic character and what it means if I say YES to everything.

If I say YES to spending time helping people everywhere each week, I am not at home with the family. If I say YES to spending money, will there be enough left to support the whole family? Our children, now that they are a little older, have began speaking and asking for everything under the sun, so Naomi taught me a new word “NO”.

In relation to saying NO and happiness I have learned to use a ‘family filter’ when asked to help others. I put the request up to the light of the filter and consider if the cost or the service will impact our family. If our family is the priority (which it is in most cases), I have learned to say “NO”. If it includes our family and there is an opportunity for us all to get involved, “YES” is a good option.

I am still a secret ‘YES’ man, but only to my wife who is very kind and reasonable. Our seven cherubs have also helped to teach me how to say NO. I find myself saying NO a little too frequently sometimes, so I do make it a point to find a way to say YES. Then I don’t always become a negative father.

In learning to say NO… there is still one area I need to learn and that is self-control when it comes to food and chocolate. Although I have gone without chocolate two times for the duration of a year and I end up learning something about myself. I have found it is not enough to sufficiently stop my eating too much, too often. I need to learn to say, “NO more thank you, I have had eloquent sufficiency”, which is a nice way of saying “NO, NO, NO”. Saying No in this way will help me physically feel happier and give me more energy to help others when asked to.

You have now probably had eloquent sufficiency of my appearance on this blog. Naomi is the one who is a good writer. I also enjoy reading her blog posts, thank you to all who read and leave comments. You are all very kind and honest readers/bloggers.

We all find it difficult to say No at times, what do you have trouble saying ‘NO’ to?

Matt