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"The Easiest and Hardest Word to Say is No.  It's only got two letters, only takes a second to say it." - Chuck D 1996

No is the answer to so many questions for me, the solution to so many problems.  You have to reject things in life if you want to spare yourself certain indignities and failures.  I know that decreases opportunities, but we don't need every opportunity available us to be successful.  Some paths are just diversions that we massage into learning experiences, of lessons we already knew.

Usually I knew better at times and didn't follow through with my better judgment. 1996-1997 was a year of No, but also a year of weak-willed failure to follow through. 2002-2008 were the great big years of Nos gone ignored.  I regret it; regret not having better ideas than the ones I executed relating to that No.  The No should have started with me, and extended outward to others.

This debate about birth control is another example of a situation where people saying No, and following through would be just as viable a solution to the majority of the perceived problems with funding contraception.  If it's too expensive, have less sex.  Conservation works for people too, not just the wilderness.  If we reduce our consumption, we reduce costs.  All those socially awkward, romantically inept, celibate by circumstance rather than choice, college students don't need to spend their summer earnings on $3000 worth of contraception, or deal with seedy bullies like Rush Limbaugh.  Neither do the sexually active college students who manage to keep the costs low by engaging in it to the extent they can afford it.

This age of credit, indulgence prior to earnings, and a general sense of entitlement has created an "I want everything, as soon as possible" mentality.  Everyone feels they should have access to everything, when they want it, but this is a world that prospers from inequality, and having varying levels of means suggests there should be varying levels of indulgences.  My mom sent me a letter my freshmen year, a few weeks into school, saying something along the lines of "remember that sometimes you have to do without now in order to prosper later".  I googled the phrase to find the quote it was based on, and was confronted with results promoting "Why put off tomorrow what you can do today?" and other statements to that effect.  There were a number of entries that were focused on undermining my mother's advice calling it Martyrism, which I see as an attitude that lines up well with the mentality of an entitled person wrestling with being denied their immediate gratification.  The problem to me is the attitude of entitlement.  If you don't expect to be immediately gratified, you won't feel like a Martyr when you are faced with deferment or rejection. Que sera sera is how it should go, once you've given it a fair go, and reaped zero gain for your efforts.  Think of the serenity prayer.

So much stress and regret/ indignity can be spared if you just nip it in the bud, cut em' off at the pass, and just say No.  Years ago I wrote about things/ habits that are self-perpetuating being traps, parasitic in nature.  These are the things I think of when I think of rejecting things in my life, embracing my need to self-actualize like an infant by learning to say No and then saying it when in my gut I know the end result of something is only an end in itself, and is going to undermine things that are means to an end in my life.  In this case Denial is the first sign of a problem, but the problem isn't what you're in denial of, it's something that ought to be denied (if you are using sound judgment).