Saying More No's Will Save Your Life.

One of the most popular questions I am asked is, “How do you do it all?”

Every woman who has built a public life gets asked this, and it is asked with real admiration. First, why don’t we ask the men this question? But that is a rant for another day.

Second, I have come to realise that this question is asked from a flawed premise. That somewhere behind the scenes there is a secret app, a stricter routine, a better calendar system that would let you fit everything in.

There is not.

The people you see doing “a lot” are not doing everything. They are simply choosing priorities differently. And the answer to the question is not the productivity hack you were hoping for. It is a list of what I do not do.

Every visible “yes” is paid for by ten invisible “nos”. Nobody sees the invisible ones, so it looks like the “yes” was free. It never is.

So here, honestly, is what my no-list looks like:

I do not attend every wedding, every naming, every housewarming, every Sunday hangout I am invited to. I choose the ones that matter to the people who matter, and I let the rest go, with a genuine “congratulations” and no essay of explanation. My presence at a friend of a friend’s cousin’s traditional engagement is not compulsory for me to attend and no emotional blackmail will get me there.

I do not carry the emotional labour of every extended-family or community upset. I love my people, and I show up in the ways that count. But I have quietly opted out of the WhatsApp-group crisis cycle where every misunderstanding must be arbitrated by everyone else. Some conversations are not mine to enter, and choosing not to enter them is not disrespectful. It is the careful coordination of a mind that has a lot of other work to do.

I do not do performative hospitality. My home is warm and it is real, but it is not a stage. I will not spend a week decorating for a two-hour visit so that people can post it. If you come to my house, you are coming to a home, not a set. And if you come without informing me, you will eat what I put in front of you… be it indomie noodles or biscuit.

I do not stay on every group chat where I am not adding anything and nothing is being added to me. I leave them, quietly. There is no ceremony to it.

I do not compete in the unspoken circuits our demographic is expected to run. The aso-ebi cycles, the wedding party economy, the constant visible presence at everyone’s everything. Some people love it and it feeds them. That is fine. It does not feed me, and I am no longer pretending it does.

I do not answer every message the moment it arrives. My phone is not a summons. Some things take a day. Some take three.

I do not, most importantly, apologise for the sort. I used to explain it—the long text about how busy I am, the pre-emptive guilt-management. I have stopped. A calm no does not need a companion essay.

If I can reply to a call from my husband, my mother, my boss and my best friend with a message that says I am busy, I’ll call back when I am done. And they all understand without the need for excess explanation, then best believe I will not explain to you either.

Listen, here is the hidden curriculum nobody hands you: you cannot say yes to your mission, your marriage, your child, your prayer life, and your actual work if you are also saying yes to every social obligation your demographic has decided is non-negotiable. Something has to fall.

The only real question is whether you are choosing what falls or letting it fall by accident, at the worst possible moment, from the top of the pile where the glass is.

You are not doing it all. Nobody is. The ones who look like they are have simply written a longer no-list than yours, and they have made peace with it.

So this week, write yours. What have you been showing up to only because someone would notice if you did not? What have you been carrying because refusing feels rude? Name it. Then, without an apology, without a paragraph of explanation, start letting it fall.

Your “yes” is not free. Stop paying for it with the wrong things.

Leave a comment

With all the fire in my heart,

Bisola.