A More Graceful Way to Say “No”
How I learned to honor my personal capacity
If there’s a will, there’s a way.
This is a hill I once would have gladly died on. I mean, how can you argue against the platitude? It’s so logical yet so emotionally charged, so straightforward and so widely echoed. And there are so many variations of this. In Filipino, we have an extended version — Pag gusto, may paraan. Pag ayaw, may dahilan — which translates to, “If there’s a will, there’s a way. If there’s none, there’s an excuse.”
Growing up in comfort, it was easy for me to believe and live by this ethos. I wanted things, worked hard for them, and then won them. Have enough of these stories and you become convinced that the answer to everything is sheer willingness. That thing you want to achieve or overcome or get done? You just have to want it enough.
But is it really that simple?
“Hi Ria, I wanted to double-check your load so far,” my boss messaged, listing the projects she knew I currently had on my plate. “I saw you received another brief. Do you have the bandwidth for it?”
Bandwidth.
Something about the word stopped me in my tracks. It wasn’t foreign to me, and yet, it felt like such a peculiar ask. Did I have the bandwidth?
