I don’t know what’s in the water these days, but 2024 clearly has somewhere to be, because the way this year is flying with serious alacrity, eh? Wasn’t it just thirty minutes ago we popped bottles to usher in the new year? And now it’s Oct 6th? Na wa o, time is not wasting time.
Time wey we no get.
Something that is much more abundant, and adds more pepper to the feeling of time not being on my side, is that innocuous and ubiquitous two-letter word…NO. It is a constant and nefarious part of my soundtrack, I like to say I am in the NO Hall of Fame, literally and pun-intentionally. My collection of NOs are jaw-dropping, anyone who goes to the NO Galleria of The Chidi will leave with serious contemplations about the meaning of life, and why are we even lifing like this.
🤣
Yes o…we had to emoji that one.
But here’s the thing though, if you are doing hard things, if you are chasing craziness, if you are taking it to the next level and staying there…the word NO is your able, willing, and ever-present companion. And don’t try to fight it o…that’s is a recipe for a spiral into the Abyss. A one-way trip to the Sunken Place. First class seats in the Upside Down (I like my movies and TV shows, leave me abeg). I read this thing about rejection being the chisel for perfection. Well, I’m not chasing perfection but my people, the chisel is chiseling with a mix of vengeance and Akabanga sauce.
So, of course…we have no choice but to go flip the script mode (only true hip-hop heads will detect what I did there). NO is not only the omnipresent companion, but also the ultimate clarifier. It keeps you honest, and deprives you of grand delusions of magnificence or entitlement, for your own good and mine. At the airport, I get a nice, deep chuckle when I see folks flip off and do the ugly dance when they are denied the upgrade or preferred seating. You can’t tell me NO, I expect a YES.
Ok, sah—YES, you can’t get an upgrade.
I’ve had no choice but to grab onto NO and hang on to it as a clarifier and also as a form of power, a level-up badge that I’ve earned from anticipating and surviving the inevitable NO hits, fueling the rejection-proof V12 engine that pushes the grind forward.
Because why not?
I own my NOs o. Every NO has had to be part of the Chidi refinement process. You get hit with the NO, and the extra excess BS (my English teacher, Mrs. Nwosu, will lay curses on me for writing such ugly phrases) gets chipped away, and there is clarity, sharpness, and definition about what is and what isn’t. Even more importantly, who is and who isn’t. There is zero interest in the soft life, more so a flexible, adaptable one. NO is the sculptor, the personal trainer, the massage therapist—abeg, me I embrace it.
Speaking of time and NO…the more NOs I encounter, the better I get at saying NO. Again, time is already scarce, time wey we no get, and the more you say YES, the less of your time you control. Listen…saying NO is not me fashi’ing you—it is me reclaiming my very precious and finite resource—time. The faster time moves, the more deliberate you have to be about what gets your attention. Saying NO is a superpower that lets you slow things down and focus on what matters.
If you know, you know.
So the more NOs get thrown at me, the better my NOs become. I love how Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, has a rule where he never says YES to anything on the spot. As he said, people-pleasing had him in too many commitments, and it was rapidly depleting his finite well of time.
"Thanks for the invite. I don't say yes to anything on the spot, but I'll let you know if I'm interested."
Golden. Imagine the freedom. Turning NO into a personal policy, not just a reaction. If it’s a rule, no more pressure of decision-making on the spot. For real. The big epiphany for me amongst the insane insanity of all the NOs coming my way is that real control isn’t just about handling rejection from others—it’s also about mastering your own ability to say NO to what doesn’t serve you. Both are part of the game. The more you can manage both sides, the more you own your time and energy.
Energy. Another one wey we no too get.
We dey here.