Not many people say no to me. It’s not because I’m particularly persuasive. It’s not because I’m hard to say no to. It’s actually because I spend a lot of my time and energy saying no for you before you ever need to say it. I’ll rarely ask you something if I don’t think it’ll be a positive response. Or I’ll only ask about things where I don’t care much about a positive or negative response. Both are tools to protect myself from being disappointed or from looking stupid (I’m not saying I do, but it’s how I feel).

I’m trying to recover from both.

So go ahead. Say “no” to me. I dare you. Go ahead, dare me to ask you something regardless of the outcome.

You know what it all comes down to right? It’s all about control. We all seek control in different ways. My way to control my environment is to either take a posture of not caring or to only enter into scenarios where a certain outcome is likely. It’s about control.

It’s a valuable, I think, to ask ourselves how we’re attempting to control our world–and thus to ask ourselves what fears or obsessions are in fact controlling us. Maybe then we’ll I’ll experience greater freedom.