Sunday Night With John: The Answer Is No

About a month ago I opened up my email to find a note from an old co-worker who is now helping with a program in Iowa called AMP. She asked me if I used to have a client with a certain name that for obvious reason can’t mention and I quickly emailed back saying that yes I worked with the client. The conversation continued as I opened my email the next day and found another email from my former coworker.  This time the email went into detail about my experience helping a former client.  She stated, “John, your past client spoke to our group last night about how you helped him through a very tough time in life.  He told our group about how you used to tell him ‘no’ all the time but would sit down with him and explain your answer and that he so much appreciated how you never held it against him for breaking a lot of windows. He shared that if it wasn’t for John, I wouldn’t be alive. John saved my life.”

She ended the email by saying “it’s wonderful to know your voice can resonant years later.”  I remembered the client right way and I remembered we tried a zillion things to reach this young man. He just kept getting violent when his emotions engaged. We were running out of ideas so one day I said to my co-worker, let’s just not restrain him.  Just keep him and us safe. He went at us for a while and we continued to say no, we aren’t going to restrain you. He ended up crying in his room and yelling at us because we wouldn’t do what he wanted.  We ended up talking that night about his aggression. He understood for at least that night that he used his aggression to get his way and that it was foreign for him to hear ‘no’ and for someone to stick to it.   

Sometimes the answer just needs to be no. I have no idea nor do I have an outline to give you to figure when to say yes or when to say no to life’s quandaries. Just know that sometimes to make progress we must say no, and that it might save someone’s life, or your own.