Toddlers are very good at using the word no. I wonder what age it is we get to when we develop the idea that we are no longer allowed to say no. Good children say yes. Be a good child. Be compliant to those more powerful than you. Always say yes.
These powerful people don’t always have to actually be more powerful than you, you just have to believe that they are more powerful than you.
And then there are some people we give more power to than we really ought to. Disorganised people tend to have more “emergencies” in their life than regular people. And in their disorganization, they may panic and demand that others fix their disorder for them. Poor planning tends to result in “emergencies”.
If those people exist in your life do not enable them, empower them. How do you empower them? By not always rushing in and fixing their problems for them, and cleaning up their messes all the time. You empower them by occasionally saying no to them.
Start asking them questions like: How did that happen? What are you going to do about it? How are you going to clean up your mess? What are you going to do in the future?
Rescuing people from themselves can get exhausting. We overly romanticize playing the part of the hero. Especially those of us who attribute our worth to being the rescuer.
I hate mess – both figurative and literal. So, as a result, I have developed a life long habit of cleaning up other people’s messes. I called it having an ‘acts of service’ love language. I recently discovered that ‘acts of service’ is not my main love language. I had simply come up with a justification for my dysfunction.
I would clean up someone else’s mess before I was even asked to. That way, I could avoid confrontation with the mess maker, or the conflict that would inevitably ensure when others were affected by the mess. I got so good at it that now I can sometimes foresee the damage a mess could create and tidy it up before anyone else is affected. Church folk call it an administrational gifting. Perhaps. An administrational gifting I developed through a fear of conflict that usually arises from mess that hasn’t been dealt with. (If you’ve read my previous post Courageous Conversations, you may remember my distaste of confrontation and conflict.)
I remember a conversation I had with a mentor once that went something like this.
“I have to do their job for them if they don’t do it.”
“Why?”
“To stop a mess from happening.”
“What would happen if there was a mess?”
“People would get angry.”
“Maybe it would be good to let them make a mess anyway…”
I remember thinking: No. No it would not be good. But I have tried to apply her advice over the past couple of years with varying degrees of success.
Sometimes you need to let people make a mess so that they can see the consequences of their actions (or inaction) and learn from them.
Being a powerful and responsible person doesn’t mean that you never make a mess. What it does mean is that as a powerful person you will clean up your mess. Powerful people don’t ignore their mess and/or expect someone else to clean it up for them. I’m referring to mess in the more figurative sense. But internal attitudes do very often manifest in an external reality. A messy mind and heart can often lead to a messy environment.
Note: I’ve heard some say “Oh but that person is a ‘creative’. You know how ‘creatives’ are.” Being a ‘creative’ is not an excuse to be irresponsible. I know loads of tidy, responsible and respectful ‘creatives’. Their ability to organise actually helps them, not hinders them, in their ability to create. Just ask any ‘creative’ who runs their own business.
It is important to set boundaries in your life to protect your priorities. To steward what is important to you. Otherwise you will be constantly running around taking care of other people’s priorities on their behalf and stewarding what is important to them. If you cannot set healthy boundaries in your life, you will be exploited. That’s not an overly cynical world-view. That is just a cold hard fact. People who do not have boundaries either grant free access to all and sundry, or they have solid walls in place, letting no man in. 
Boundaries are not walls. They are gates that you hold the key to. You decide who has access and what level of access they have to your life. You decide what you will do and what you will not do. You are responsible for you.
Danny Silk says in his book, Keep Your Love On, “when you start telling people what you’re going to do and what you’re not going to do and follow through on both, people come to believe what you say. Your words have weight.”
Even Jesus said, let your yes be yes and your no be no.
When you start saying no, your yes starts to mean something.
Sometimes letting someone make a mess looks like saying no to them. When someone is not used to being told no, they won’t like it. They may even freak out a little. But eventually they will get over it. They may learn, or they may move on to someone else. But at least your priorities will be protected and your self-respect will still be in tact (as well as your mental health).
And if you still cannot say no, try searching out a toddler who will most probably be happy to teach you.
