My mom always jokes that when I was a toddler, all I would say was “no!”. What happened to that assertive version of myself?
When I was a kid, I thought the world was made of kindness, so I did my best to be as kind as I could, whenever I could. But as I grew up, I started to realize that it’s been hard to be and stay kind, and eventually I understood that it takes strength to be kind. There have been certain situations when I have felt like there wasn’t a point in being kind or polite because, while I was putting in a great deal of effort, this was not being acknowledged or appreciated. In those moments, I wondered what kind of a person I was, or if kindness was even real. In a lot of the movies I watched as a child, like Camp Rock—the only movie coming to my mind currently—there is a scene where the people pleaser meets their breaking point and sticks up for themself at the end of the movie. I thought these kinds of scenes were the best scenes in any movie, and maybe it was because I wanted to emulate and find the strength to set certain boundaries, but I never could.
I’ve gone through my life feeling like I’ve been used or taken advantage of because I always say “yes” to everything, even when I don’t actually like what I’m saying “yes” to. I’m not sure how it got to the point where I felt like I needed to act in service of other people no matter what happened.
Lately, many parts of myself have been aligning in a way that I did not expect to see. The part of me that wants to make everyone happy has been upset and tired, and the part of me that wants to say “no!” has been peeking through my subconscious. That is not to say that I have been abundantly awful to people or given up trying to be kind: that part of me is still alive. It’s just that both parts of me that are usually at odds have been getting along and making it so that I am now less tolerant towards certain actions or requests. I have been establishing boundaries, saying “no”, and recognizing what I need to communicate with other people if there is an issue (something I did not do before at all). I feel myself getting mentally and emotionally healthier each time I say something other than “yes”.
I no longer expect people to be kind, which is my least favourite part of this transition. I have learnt to not have high expectations of people and know not everyone will appreciate a small or large act of kindness. While I know being kind does not equal being seen, I always wondered: what act of kindness doesn’t make an impact? In movies and TV shows with a kind and shy main character, like Cinderella, they almost always get their happily ever after in the end and see some sort of payoff to their patience. But I find that the more patient I am waiting on others to appreciate my efforts, the more I’ve been getting hurt.
As much as I want to be kind to everyone, I also realize there has to be a line that I draw before it gets to be too much. Despite me saying “no” more frequently—or at all—I am still performing an act of kindness, just not to others. Putting myself before others, though seemingly wrong on paper, actually shows that I am being kind to myself for once and that I need to do this.