There's a lot of hype about saying yes to new opportunities in order to gain new experiences and "live." I came into college with this kind of mindset, and for a while, it worked pretty well for me. Before coming to college, I wasn't much of a socializer, and though I'm still not a very good one, I'm more social than I was in high school. Saying yes to people is something I often do when I'm not comfortable enough to say no, and it eventually became a habit for me during my first year of college. I said yes to everything -- going to meals with others, hanging out with people all the time, and making the effort to go see others.
Some of these activities ended with happy feelings and satisfaction, but it didn't last. After saying yes all the time for a while, I grew emotionally tired. I felt like I always had to make the effort to go to others and hanging out with others began to feel like a waste of time. I stopped enjoying hanging out with friends because it felt like I was repeating the same thing every day, and it took a toll on the way I viewed the people around me. I saw them as people who didn't want to make any effort in a friendship; people who were using me as a "backup friend." But past these thoughts, I knew they weren't really like that and that feeling that way was because I was exhausting myself.
Coming into my second year, I knew saying yes all the time wasn't going to do me any good, so I tried to distance myself from others in order to create a space for myself.
Initially, the space felt really lonely. For a while, I thought I was cutting off all of my friendships that I had worked so hard to make and that I would soon be unwillingly left alone. But I later acknowledged it as a full empty space, meaning a space that was not filled with socializing or making continuous efforts, but a moment to breathe and be by myself. In that space was an opportunity to take back the time I lost and put it into myself -- to watch Netflix for hours without having to talk to anyone, to eat a meal alone, and to get done the work I needed to do.
If there is any advice to give to someone that feels like they're constantly giving themselves away, it's to say no. Say no to going to get dinner with people every night. Say no to always going to others. This doesn't mean you should always say no -- it just means you should say no when you feel like it. It's scary because you never know how people will react to you saying no to them, but it's necessary. If you say yes a lot, you're likely someone who is kind of a crowd-pleaser, and that means you sometimes stretch yourself too thin. Just know that it really is okay to say no to others. You matter just as much as the people you cherish, and if they care about you as much as you care about them, they'll understand when you need some time to yourself.
