LEARN TO SAY NO

By Jorge D. Lomboy
August 18, 2015



Something I have learned late in life is that enjoyment has something to do with what we have, comfort has something to do with what we possess and happiness has something to do with what we own.  There is a price to pay for the things we have, a price to pay for the things we possess and a price to pay for the things we own.  Enjoyment, comfort and happiness can be purchased and there are more than enough of sellers in the open market. 

However peace has nothing to do with what we have, nothing to do with the things we possess and nothing to do with the things we own.  Peace is priceless for anything that has no price tag is spiritual that could not be bought.  And this much I can tell you: There is no peace in the marketplace, there is no peace in buy and sell, and there is no peace in having everything.

Since there is a price to pay for the things we have, a price to pay for the things we possess and a price to pay for the things we own, it is clear that life is commercialized in stores where there is a price tag on everything.  There is no end to the list of things we enjoy, no end to the list of things to provide comfort and no end to the list of things we seek to own.  We begin to live beyond our means with the things we enjoy, the things that give us comfort and the things that make us happy as we are carried away by the glitter of temptation in a world of ads and commercials.  We compromise peace when we live beyond our means, we forfeit peace when we are heavily laden, we alienate peace when we give in to temptation, we sacrifice peace when we overspend and we trade away peace in abundance.  We will never know the importance of peace until we have learned to live within our means.  Life is meaningful when there is peace and is meaningless when we compromise peace for the things we have, the things we possess and the things we own.

Let not temptation swallow our peace by learning to say no.  I have observed that people who are young and strong are acquisitive while those who are old and weak are dispositive.  The youth are prone to accumulation, to have and to hold while the old are prone to disposition, to yield and give away.  In his golden years George Burns once said: “If I had a choice between losing all my earthly possessions and being young again, I would choose the latter for with it I would recover everything.”  The vagrant and exacting demands of a pressurized society compels us to run our lives beyond our means, limits and restrictions.  The rampant and gratuitous lure of commercials have driven us to carry a load heavier than our capacity.  Society does not know our means, limits and restrictions for business seeks to clean our till.  We know our own limits and restrictions and we know how it feels to go broke.  All the things we have, the things we possess and the things we own provide short-term enjoyment and long-term suffering for lack of peace when we are heavily burdened.

Business is out to make money by all means, fair or foul.  Business knows no morals, has no loyalties to protect and has no feelings of compassion.  To make money is all that counts and all that matters.  There is no such thing as philanthropic business.  Business by its very nature is out to skin the customer, take all the flesh and throw away all the bones.  I am the last one to believe that business is free of duplicity.  Caveat emptor, meaning let the buyer beware, is another way of saying that deception is a hidden ingredient of business trade secrets.  Business is out to swallow the vulnerable consumer and drive him to all chapters of bankruptcy.  We can carry our own weight but not the weight of business to whom we should learn to say no.

Politics is the occupation of the power hungry where the means justify the ends.  While business is concerned with making money, having power appears to be the only motivation in politics and in running for policy-making positions.  Politics is a dirty game where right and wrong are deferred to the majority which is not always right.  It makes us a captive audience where loyalty is more important that brainstorming.  Politics by its very nature is out to win our trust even as we have been fooled not one time, not some of the time but all of the time.  I am the last person to resist the conventional notion that politics has done us more good than bad.  Whatever party is in power, it is more of the same if not getting worse with a vanishing middle class.  We should carry our weight and not the weight of politics to whom we should learn to say no.

Business is out to influence the consumer, politics is out to influence the citizen and religion is out to influence the faithful.  The institutional influence of business, politics and religion have brainwashed many of us bordering on idolatry.  They regulate our lives, they manage our affairs, they mind our business and they suppress our will.  There seems to be nothing we can call our very own.  Business, politics and religion compete to influence our way of life.  That is why we are a nation of diverse values amid a profound diversity of cultures.  We will never learn to say no until we observe our limitations and live within our means.  If your bicycle does not allow an extra passenger, then the trouble begins with fourteen extra passengers.  In a similar way, if you can lift a hundred-pound object, then it follows that you can lift a fifty-pound object.  Learn to say no to people who are getting more than what you have.

It is only natural to aim high, think big and rivet our eyes to the stars.  Aiming high is what growth and success are all about.  But we should not lose sight of the fact that even as we strive to achieve our potential, our niche is still on the ground below where real life is full of vagrant and exacting realities.  We are impaled by obstacles, impeded by restrictions and hindered by impediments in our interactions and struggles.  Our intricate relationships provide a great deal of stumbling blocks on the part of those who regard our fortune as their own misfortune.  Our response to every situation and our attitude toward setbacks will determine whether or not we own our life or have our life loaned to others.  Learning to say no will quell every attempt to fleece and pierce us.

I realize that learning to say no is easier said than done.  But you must learn to say no if only to show that you are not a dead fish going with the flow.  We must learn to say no in a world where deception is the name of the game in every trade or business.  All of us have the ability to say no as well as a right to say no.  That ability and that right is useless without the courage to say no.  It takes a living fish to go against the current.  The courage to say no makes us feel that we own our own selves amid conflicting interests and competing influences.  Bear in mind that you are not just a name, you are a component of the entirety.

Make no mistake and don’t get me wrong.  When I say learn to say no, I don’t mean to inflame your emotions.  I am not inducing anyone to become belligerent and rebellious.  I am not enticing anyone to disobey authority and defy the very laws we need to abide by.  Our need to say no is appropriate and demanded on issues of right and wrong to straighten out crooked nails.  We must learn to say no to prevent the multiplication and proliferation of wrongdoing through brainwashing practices that lead to idolatry in business, in politics and religion.  We must learn to say no to the overreaching oppressors seeking to live in luxury at the expense of people in need.  We must learn to say no for going along is not always good for us.  We must learn to say no to assert our identity and be our own person.  Only a fool, a bigot and a dummy don’t learn to say no.