Have you ever been in a situation when someone asked you for a favor - a drive to a doctor's appointment or loaning a friend or relative some money - and you wanted to say NO but you couldn't - and you went ahead and did and spent the rest of the day or night or week regretting it and being pissed off at yourself for not having the balls to decline?
Sure you have. We all have. We want to be there for our friends and family. Schlep your Aunt Helen to her doctor's appointment. Loan a friend some coin so he can pay his rent or drive a buddy to and from the airport. The list is endless and for the most part we are glad to help out.
But there are times when we want to say NO; instances when we should say "Sorry, can't help you out".
It happened to me just last week. A cousin who is a recovering alcoholic, was stopped by cops and issued a DUI less than 2 blocks from where he had departed and taken to a nearby hospital in Wheaton, Md. (We both live in the District of Columbia in the same house I might add - me on the 1st floor and he on the second level with his girlfriend who 2 days later managed to smash in the front bumper and grill of the car he had driven on that fateful night.)
My cell phone rang as I was driving to my dentist to have a cap that had fallen out returned to its proper place in my mouth. It was my first excursion outside in nearly 2 weeks because I had been fighting a nasty
chest cold and cough and shingles and taking antibiotics for them. The caller was my cousin asking if I would drive him out to Wheaton to pick up his 'things'. He didn't say exactly where but I surmised it was the police station. I said I'd call him back when I got home. 30 seconds didn't pass when I remembered what my doctor had told me a few days before when I saw him. "Keep your butt inside where it's warm and out of the cold and rest until you get over the hump with this cold," he advised.
A no brainer. I called my cousin back and say, "Sorry, I'm just getting over a nasty cold and I'm getting back in bed when I get back from the dentist, so I can't help you out." He was ok with it and said he loved me and I said I loved him too and hung up.
I waited for that pang of guilt to hit me. It didn't. I had no reason in the world to feel guilty about not being there for someone as I so often had in the past when I wanted to say NO but hadn't and then spent hours bitching and kvetching to myself and others about it.
You can't always be there for someone. There are times when you have to say NO NO NO. This was one of them. My cousin called around and eventually found someone to schlep him out to Wheaton only to be told he was supposed to be there a day earlier to retrieve his wallet, etc.
It's a good thing I wasn't with him when he returned to the car without his belongings. I might have choked him to death while I silently bitched and moaned about driving him there.
Sometimes saying NO is the right thing to do. This was one of them.
No comments:
Post a Comment