Most of the people I know ( including myself ) fear saying no.
Everyone wants to be in good books of everyone else, want to look all cozy, assertive and friendly.
This works when they are in a position to fulfill a request.
But when they are not in such a position, or when they do not want to honor the request, instead of saying no, often people tend to go silent. I am not saying that they ignore, am just saying that directly refusing a request is such an obtrusive thought that people rather go offline (as if the request was never made.)
Now for the person who made request, this is sheer agony. When the deadline is past, this person has no option but to wonder as to why could this other person (to whom he made the request ) not say no in first place instead of keeping things on hold for an eternity and finally earning a bad name by not honoring the request.
But in this world, there are clever chaps. People who know how to make excuses, and there are still more clever ones who know how to make realistic sounding excuses. With this amazing gift, they create an illusion that they genuinely want to help, but their hands are tied and blah blah. WTF you either honor a request or you don't. There is no middle ground......
there's never a clear cut answer to this... as many instances in life. its never 'white' or 'black'. always 'gray'.
ReplyDeletetrue, there are some people out there who are pro's at making up excuses and sounding genuine.
but there are also some people who try to make everybody happy, and just hate saying no. n being silent doesn't always mean 'no i don't want to do it' and keep the person hanging... but it can also mean 'i'm going to try everything to do it but i don't want to give u hope by saying yes, but neither do i want to crush any hope u might have by saying no'.
it honestly depends on the situation... if its an urgent circumstance, it would help to just say 'no, i can't do it'... but if its a request... then silence now, and a possible positive outcome is much better, i think.
O yes. It depends... always :)
ReplyDeleteExceptions are made everyday, otherwise this world wouldn't be as interesting as it is. Uncertainty, unpredictability is key to life and is almost always certain. Waiting to see what each new day has to offer
Sometimes even the same people surprise you by acting unusually different...
Sometimes we even surprise ourselves by being someone else, for a change.
Yep, some people are wonderful at making up excuses. Re: saying no, I guess it depends on how much you don't want to do something. If it's only a little bit, there is a thing called compromise. But if you really, really don't want to do something, sometimes it's better to be genuine and to face the consequences. Too much that is wrong is allowed to happen when people know it is wrong but close their eyes to it and instead try to get in the good graces of people they despise.
ReplyDeleteAah...great... Thanks !
ReplyDeleteYou added an entirely new dimension to this thought of mine, something I didn't imagine while writing this one.
whatever the topic is about human behavior or about humans, it's better not to categorize them (into two/three/many groups, first of all into groups). The moment you do it, you're missing something, you're overlooking something.
ReplyDeletelet's take someone who says no for things he doesn't like doing ( a lot, afriedman) and he's consecutively faced with such requests from similar people, he finally says yes to some other request which he might not be liking (more than earlier ones). this could be the other way too
again, the moment human/human behavior is grouped, you're missing something. it's however normal that we have an overall impression of people. but better it is mild and that we stay open