Many a times saying No as a mother to my kids frees me up to say Yes as a wife to my partner.
Other times saying No to a business engagement enables me to be there for my children.
Still the disappointment that comes across makes "No" a difficult word in my book. So the ever creative yours truly has developed an alternative model to saying No.
Rather than deny a request I'll rather set a condition which must be fulfilled for the request to be granted.
Say my daughter wanted me to take her to the park where I'll rather be indoors, my typical reply would be after you've read your books. Why? Well knowing the short attention span of my girl, by the time she is done with her books she would have forgotten her request.
Note that one must be a good judge of character to apply this principle.
Just last week a male colleague of mine "finally summoned up the courage to ask me to spend the night with him" end quote. Since am not into adultery and knowing his financial status, I quite calmly told him that he would have to organize a trip outside Nigeria to have his way with me, you know America, UK or Dubai.
Did it work? Well I have not heard from him since then so your guess is as good as mine cheers...........JCOG
