saying no is saying yes

"not for everyone" podcast just blew my mind

You know when you hear something and you just need to tell everyone immediately?

That was me when I came across an unintentionally profound nugget of advice on the “not for everyone” podcast. It’s hosted by Caroline Winkler and Jess DeBakey, self-proclaimed “hater” and “lover,” respectively.

Despite being a fan of Caroline’s quirky, sincere interior design videos, I only just found time to listen to her podcast. This episode talked about the art of saying “no.” I thought it would be a list of platitudes for getting out of hangouts (just tell the person you hate them! it’s that easy!), but Caroline and Jess surprised me with their takes — not just the steel-tipped self-assuredness of them, but also a flipped perspective I hadn’t expected.

me trying to say no to people

My favorite scenario Caroline and Jess discussed was about a girl who had recently quit her choir, and was agonizing over the decision. Even thought she felt that the activity was no longer serving her, she felt unsettled about leaving and wondered if she made the right choice.

Stressing about the decision after you’ve already made it. Yes.

Caroline’s response was this: “Every time you say yes to something, you are also saying no to something else. There’s no such thing […] as a yes in once place that doesn’t involve a no elsewhere.”

For instance, if you give a direct yes to choir, the ripple effect of that decision is an implicit no to the other plans you could potentially make: the book club that’s held on that day, time with your kids, dates with friends, cooking thoughtful meals instead of frantic ones.

In the same way, the direct decision to say no to choir means the yes is now implicit — even if you don’t yet know which “yes”s will fill your calendar.

Bottom line: when you say yes, you also say no. And vice versa.

A lot of podcasts tend to recycle the same takes with different phrasing, so there aren’t a lot of perspectives that will truly surprise people. Yet this one did for me.

I hadn’t thought of every yes as a packaged deal with no, but when Caroline said it, it made sense. It’s why I think I have a hard time committing to things. I’m also in a choir (which I’m glad I stuck with), but I initially debated quitting. I thought it was because of the time commitment, but looking back I think I was worried about crossing off my Mondays with a big permanent marker, the same marker that I used to pencil in weekly jazz at the bar down the block, or Monday Night Football with my boyfriend, or just time to do nothing (which is the same thing as Monday Night Football for me).

So my yes to choir was also a no to these other things I love. But this yes/no combo felt fair, balanced — it gifted me a lovely, talented community of people who notice when I’m not in my seat at the front of the soprano section.

Other “yes”s may not feel as comfortable or correct, which is why I’m trying to get better about saying no. But wait, I’m not really saying no, am I? With the Caroline Theory, I’m actually saying yes to open evenings that may turn into a calm night with one of my friends. I’m saying yes to easy Sunday mornings instead of a hurried coffee date catching up on nothing. I’m saying yes to Friday nights that become a restorative repose from a busy week, rather than another “please confirm your reservation!” text from resy (press 1 to confirm).

To those that say, “Ok… this is just making choices 101. You have to choose between things as an adult,” I say, “You’re right but I’d prefer to write a long essay about how it’s actually a very complex mental calculation, and you should go eat a warm piece of bread (not toast) and f*ck off.”

It’s really freeing to think in terms of this yes/no duality, but it can be difficult to anticipate how saying no to something will materialize into a yes down the road. Maybe you decide against taking a weekly stand-up comedy class — you just don’t have the time, or the mental capacity, or you don’t feel that funny right now. For a while you might waffle over whether that was the right choice, feeling an extra churn of regret in your stomach as you scroll past a stand-up reel on Instagram. But then, a few weeks later, a friend asks if you want to start going to bar trivia on Wednesdays, the day you would have had class. Your brain may not even make the connection that your Wednesdays are free because you said no to the stand-up class. Consciously or not, though, you said yes to a fun, memorable night with a friend the moment you passed on the class.

This decision doesn’t make you less driven, or less worthy of that microphone on stage (should you want it in the future). It just means that right now, you needed a night with a friend more than you needed to learn how to write a punchline.

If it helps, keep track of the things you say no and yes to, and see how you net out. If you’re cataloging them correctly, they should be even — because for every no, there’s a yes doing the Mia and Sebastian nod thing from across the bar.