The selfishness secret: embrace the liberating, life-enhancing power of saying no

My mother has been through a remarkable transformation since she became a widow more than a year ago. She has a new mantra, which is: “I’d rather not.” I think she may have seen it on an embroidery meme. Whatever its origins, I have found it inspiring, and I think it may be a key lesson for building a better life.

I have changed the details of this story, but kept the gist: let’s say she was recently invited to join a book group by one of our mutual friends, but she did not want to go. Rather than suffer monthly invitations to attend something she had no desire to go to, and have to invent a different excuse each time, or worse, go, she simply delivered her mantra: “I’d rather not.”

I was quite stunned to discover this. I felt the kind of shock I felt when I discovered the different flavours of KitKat they sell in Japan and thought: “My goodness, I didn’t realise they could make chocolate that colour.” It was particularly galling to hear, because by the time my mother had told me her response, I had already replied to the same invitation with: “Oh yes, thank you so much. I would love that.” It had not occurred to me that declining was a possibility.

I am at the stage in my life when I do not have the time or energy to read my post, let alone a book, and when an evening out feels very precious and will ideally be spent with my husband or having dinner with a dear friend. So I was forced to ask myself, why on earth did I say yes?

Well, I have given this a lot of thought and I think I understand something about what happened. It is telling that I did not even consider saying no, even though I knew immediately that I very much did not want to say yes.

I believe that in that moment I felt I did not have a choice: somebody had asked me to do something, and I believed that their desire for me to do that thing was more important than my desire not to do it.

We are told from a very young age that we are not supposed to be selfish – girls more so than boys, and mothers more than anyone, but all of us experience this pressure from society. What we are less aware of is the pressure from inside, this instinct that many of us have that our own needs and desires are things to be ignored, neglected and silenced. We call it people pleasing, but I think that is not quite right. Yes, the consequence is that we please other people, but that is a very superficial analysis of what is really going on; that is not necessarily where the compulsion originates. The compulsion might originate in the silencing and starvation of our own needs and wishes.

In order to build a better life, a certain degree of selfishness, of prioritising your wants and needs over others’, is necessary. Not all the time, not in every circumstance, but enough of the time and in enough of the circumstances that matter most to you. I am not suggesting abdicating all responsibility, or being unnecessarily cruel, but part of growing up and becoming your own person involves discovering your own desires and priorities and ensuring that you are living the life you want to live, rather than the life others want you to live. Doing that means sometimes putting your own feelings ahead of other people’s and knowing why you are doing it, and acknowledging that it might hurt those you love.

Perhaps that is also part of why it is so hard to say no; we don’t want to hurt the ones we love. We don’t want to cause them pain, or anger or frustration. As if that pain, anger and frustration are unbearable. As if these feelings are not an important part of life – equally as meaningful and worthwhile as joy or love, though perhaps far less wanted.

It is something I find myself struggling with every day as a mother. Because although I find it hard to say no, I also know that a child who is never told no is robbed of the opportunity to learn that being told no is a bearable, survivable and often a helpful experience. If I as a parent am so terrified of my child’s pain, my child may well come to experience their emotions as overwhelming, terrifying things to be avoided at all costs – as something she needs to be protected from, rather than something vital she needs to feel.

Not long after the book group incident, I was asked by a friend to do them a favour, and I very nearly said yes. But I caught myself, I thought about it, and I realised I’d rather not, and I didn’t have time.* So I said no. And it felt great.

* I had a lot of reading to do for book club.

• Moya Sarner is an NHS psychotherapist and the author of When I Grow Up – Conversations With Adults in Search of Adulthood