On Saying "No" To Being a Hotel Maid
Anyone who knows me, knows I love a full calendar. Saying “yes” has always felt like the right and generous path and I suffer shame and guilt when I don’t say “yes.” But as I look back on my years and years of spent calendars, what was all that? The precious time these welcomed obligations consumed, was it worth it? Would I do it again if given the chance for a “do-over?”
All I know for sure is that the time is lost forever.
I think it’s a matter of clarity. Maybe I didn’t have a proper understanding of priorities. There is so much in life that just doesn’t matter, consumes our time and energy, and then it’s over. We’re over.
Stephen Covey said, “You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage — pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically — to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger 'yes' burning inside."
My bigger yes wasn’t burning inside of me. Maybe a few warm spots here and there. What burned in me was a long list compiled by request from the audience at my urging. What do they need? How can I help them?
It still seems right to me to put a good chunk ahead of my priorities despite what Covey says. Despite what all philosophers I’ve read say.
But one takeaway for me is this: I need to decide what my gifts are and how I can use them in the service of life.
Whoa! FLASHBACK OF INSIGHT after I wrote that!
I just remembered when I was 18 someone decided one of my gifts was cleaning and that I could serve the world by scrubbing vomit and strangers’ pubic hair out of a hotel room toilet. I was a maid for one day. I said “no.”
That’s it. I am seeing this a little differently. We can’t let other people decide this for us. The world is too self-serving to be helpful. It’s also abdicating a critical responsibility of life.
Figure it out: 1) What are my gifts? 2)How can I best use them?
It’s late and I’m old. But not too late and not too old.
I am sorry I will have to say “no".” I have a bigger YES that needs my attention.
(Just practicing for later).
“How many have laid waste to your life when you weren’t aware of what you were losing, how much was wasted in pointless grief, foolish joy, greedy desire, and social amusements - how little of your own was left to you. You will realize you are dying before your time.”