(#25): saying no
On learning to find joy instead negativity in "no"
spoiler alert (kind of?) if you care about and haven’t seen the final episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel
I let myself off the hook from this last week, something I’m spending a lot of energy lately learning how to do. Instead of writing, I rested on Memorial Day, which meant watching the very last episode of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. I’m not sure if the few people who actually read this are fans of that show, but I’ve noticed that when it came out I couldn’t escape it, and now I hardly hear anyone talk about it anywhere. For the past two seasons, I’ve been pretty over it, but I love the sets and costumes and somehow always wind up sucked back in at the start of a new season.
Anyway, the last episode has been eating at me for a week. After watching, I spent the rest of my day off rattled, haunted by the closing comments of Maisel’s career-defining comedy set. She said:
I want a big life. I want to experience everything. I want to break every single rule there is. They say ambition is an unattractive trait in a woman. Maybe. But you know what's really unattractive? Waiting around for something to happen. Staring out a window, thinking the life you should be living is out there somewhere but not being willing to open the door and go get it. Even if someone tells you you can't. Being a coward is only cute in The Wizard of Oz.
I pretty much agree with the sentiment, which is why it bothered me so much. Even though that quote is preceded by Maisel’s declaration that she wants to be unbelievably famous, and followed later by a peek into her big sad empty house, I took it as an accusation that I’m a coward who’s playing it safe and that if I don’t have everything I want in life yet it’s because I’m not trying hard enough. I spent hours ruminating on all of the ways I’m failing at being bolder and braver before finally telling Jason about the whole thing. He immediately laughed and said, “Isn’t that show about a woman who lives at home in her parents’ brownstone and is rich enough to spend most of her time trying to become a comedian?”
He was right. Mrs. Maisel might be ambitious, but she was also from a wealthy family, living at the height of American consumerism (still a woman though, so one point Maisel). Now, looking at the episode as a whole, I think there might’ve been some implied commentary in there about how in her obsession with becoming famous, Maisel sometimes lost sight of what makes life truly rich, like love and connection, not big houses and bigger wardrobes. I wondered why I let a few lines from a TV show I only half-like hassle me, and realized it’s not the only place I’ve felt the pressure to stay productive. That pressure comes all the time from all sides, including pressure to rest because it will ultimately make me more productive.
People are constantly saying you can do anything you set your mind to, or you can achieve anything you want if you just work hard enough, or all you have to do to get the life you want is go out and grab it. It might sound cynical or lazy, but that’s simply not true for the majority of people. It’s a lie we’re told to make us work harder and longer. In just a few words, the responsibility for the state of our lives is thrust entirely upon the individual instead of any kind of communal responsibility for the living conditions of our world. Does that mean I don’t think people need to work hard to get what they want? No. Most people simply will not survive unless they’re working hard. You need to work for money, insurance, food – everything we need to literally survive as human beings depends on work.
Like Mrs. Maisel, I want a big life. I want to experience everything. I’ve never been someone who knew what they wanted to do, because I want to try it all. How will I know for sure what I like and don’t like if I can’t try a little bit of everything? The truth, one I’ve probably said here before and will again, is that I don’t want to “work.” Will I work? Yes. Do I have to work? Yes. Do I want to work? No. I want to spend the limited time in my short human life enjoying the world around me. I want to lay in the sun and boogie in the kitchen while making 1,000 different flavors of my favorite food, ice cream, while painting and singing and writing books and taking photos and helping my neighbors and talking to people older than me about all the things on this list that I haven’t done yet because I’m not wise enough to know I should. I want to stare into Jason and our dog Lou’s faces until the day each of us dies. I want to have kids (I think) and actually see them grow. I want to visit all the national parks and every country and eat every to-die-for dish on the planet. I want to get all the amazing women I know (and have yet to meet) in a room together as often as possible and gush about how amazing we all are, going around the room complimenting each other forever. I want to find a way to fix all that ails us humans, and force us to be better and kinder to each other. But even without a 9-to-5 there’s just not enough time for all of that.
So, instead of dwelling on my frustration at our society’s obsession with figuring out what you want to do for a living and the fallacy that all it takes is personal fortitude to go out and snatch it up, I’m learning to say no to things. All kinds of things. Over the weekend, I stayed up very late at a friend’s wedding. Normally, I’d force myself out of bed early the next morning to make sure I saw everyone at breakfast and said a proper good-bye. Instead, I decided that nobody needed me to get out of bed and eat a shitty hotel buffet breakfast in their honor, but I needed sleep. So I slept.
While I’m not so much a “believer” in signs from the Universe, I am a “hoper” in them. Like sometimes, usually when something is going poorly for me or I expect it to, I’ll pray to God or the Universe at large to, “please, please just give me a sign that this will be alright.” And then whatever happens next I think, “Hm, maybe that was a sign?” and immediately move on. But it makes me feel a little better in the moment. Lately, I’ve been seeing and hearing a lot of talk about the power of quitting things or saying no to things during a time when I need to get better at saying no.
This isn’t new. “The Great Resignation,” “Quiet Quitting,” and Ruby Tandoh’s excellent essay, “On the transformative art of quitting,” are all relics from 2020 espousing the popularity and/or power of giving the ultimate “no.” Back then, such extreme examples of people pushing back excited me, because for most of the 2010s, I think conversations about ‘saying no’ were coming from self-help gurus and Girl Bosses pushing people to “optimize” their lives, arguing people should say no so they can make the most out of their time, and ultimately, more money.
Today, I listened to a recent episode of NPR’s Fresh Air with Julia Louis-Dreyfus, where she talked about her new podcast, Wiser Than Me. One of her favorite guests so far was Jane Fonda, who told her “No is a complete sentence.” Louis-Dreyfus explains that piece of advice is especially valuable to women, who are often socialized to justify or apologize for why they want to say no to something. In most cases, if you don’t want to do something, just saying that should be enough.
I’ve always had a hard time saying no, particularly if I think it might hurt someone’s feelings. As a kid, if my mom bought me, or even showed me before buying, a piece of clothing she liked, I’d tell her I liked it even if I hated it. I didn’t want her to think I didn’t like her taste. I got a little better at it as I got older, but not much. I equated saying no with being negative and difficult. I’ve always worried too much about what other people think of me, and often put those opinions ahead of my own. A couple week’s ago, I listened to Jane Fonda’s episode of Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard, and she said, “Women are taught not to tell their truth because if we tell our truth, nobody will love us. And what I learned as I started to get older, is when women tell our truths, it’s universal.”
I spent so much time growing up trying to be agreeable that I wasn’t really being myself, and I’m only now understanding that when I express what I want, or what my authentic feelings are, I’m inviting people in, not pushing them away. Instead of saying yes all the time, I’m saying yes when it helps me grow, and most importantly, when I actually want to do something, which is still most of the time.
The more I learn about the importance of saying something as seemingly simple as “no,” the more I wish I explicitly learned about the concept and importance of consent sooner. We pigeon-hole consent into conversations about sex, but even more broadly, it’s about gaining the skills and confidence it takes to express and respect your own and other people’s boundaries. In recent years, the conversation about consent has been becoming more mainstream and popular, and I regularly see friends of mine sharing great information on social media about it, like this clip from Sarah Casper (@comprehensiveconsent), a consent educator. I still don’t think consent is understood enough, which is concerning when you consider that adults who don’t know how to assert or respect boundaries, or what healthy boundaries look like, are expected to teach future generations about comprehensive consent.
One thing that scene in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel gets right is the importance of discovering what you want and finding the strength to voice and pursue it. That message is so often wrapped up and buried in superficial material desires, which are fun, versus the actual characteristics and experiences that construct a full, meaningful, joyful life. Now more than ever, we’re taught to want money and fame and the latest iPhone and buccal fat removal surgery but when I think about that list of all the things I really want, it boils down to time, health, and love. When you know what you want, it gets easier to ask for or demand it, and the word “no” becomes a tool to open doors where you want them and close them where you don’t.
Hot
Telling people you like them - One of the best parts about that episode of Armchair Expert with Jane Fonda was listening to her and Dax Shepard explicitly telling each other “I really like you.” We should do that more!!!
Zapp’s Voodoo pretzel sticks - delicious and delightful and I cannot stop eating them.
This episode of You’re Wrong About full of voice memos about what the show means to its listeners. It’s sweet and moving to hear about the impact one person’s voice can have on the lives of so many.
Bothered
Natural Deodorant - tale as old as time: I’m back on Dove after Native completely stopped working. Taking recommendations if you have them.
The fact that I only just learned about Lorena Borjas, an iconic trans activist and harm reductionist who did incredible work for people in Queens, not for money, but because she thought it was the right thing to do. She died of Covid and everyone should learn her legacy.
I also just learned that the United States forcibly sterilized Haitian women seeking asylum in the 90s who were HIV-positive after testing them without their consent. Similar practices have continued in recent years by ICE, including gynecological procedures intended for sterilization without proper consent.
Leaving you with this banger: