Inspiration! Say no to yourself

This concept recently came up on Lifehacker.  Most of us know the vital importance of being able to say "no".  Overcommitting is bad for everyone, and sometimes you just have to turn things down for your sanity and your performance and for everyone else's sake.

But what about yourself?  What about saying no to yourself?

Well that's much harder, isn't it?  I don't like saying no to myself.  Saying no to other people is hard enough, let alone myself.

On Lifehacker they talk about saying no to yourself in terms of stopping the workaholism and having spare time.  I would like to say no to myself to stop the workaholism and have quality spare time.

This means not only turning off my phone notifications and closing my email when I leave work, but turning off Netflix and opening a book or doing yoga or finally learning how to play piano.

This means actually using my phone to call someone instead of just texting or Facebook messaging them.

And OF COURSE, this means putting my phone away when I'm actually spending time with other people.

Basically, it means saying no to the default, easy, mind-numbing choice that lets me be entertained and relaxed but leaves me unrefreshed, unrenewed, and generally uninspired.

Sometimes I look back longingly on my high school days when I had all the time in the world to lie on my bedroom floor and listen to Sarah McLauchlan's Surfacing over and over again, staring at the liner notes, imagining worlds and making up dances and stories in my mind.

Then I sometimes remember: I can still do that.  Sort of.  I don't have that much spare time, and I also don't really want to lie around listening to depressing music and feeling bad about myself (which is also what I was doing), but I do want to make up dances for fun and write stories and lose myself reading for an afternoon and play my guitar and take photos.  All those ways I would pass the time when there wasn't anything good on TV because there wasn't a constant stream of whatever I wanted to watch available on the internet.

So.  I am both looking forward to and dreading this prospect of saying no to myself more often.  Saying no to the default and finding another solution.

Let's see how this goes.