Saying "No..."

The past 10 days, we from SIP came to SSV, the most intensive varg we at Sangh in the UK hold for the leadership training of our swayemsevaks. It was a very interesting experience… Over the last 4 weeks, we had been making plans of our own to reach our goal at the end of the 7 weeks, and to be suddenly thrust into a strict regime environment meant that we had to adapt our plans for SIP into the works of SSV.

Our Abhyaas Varg was one of the most intense weekends we have ever faced but we had been separated from the rest of SSV for the two whole days and in that time, we had become outsiders to the world of SSV 2010. We had to create a new platform, upon which we could regain the trust of the other shikshartis, shikshaks, prabandhaks and adhikaris at the varg so that we could become a more effective force at SSV. And so, our initial response was to say “yes” to everything and anything that was asked of us. Over the course of just one day, we had found that we had accumulated a number of responsibilities at SSV including doing prabandhak work, shikshak work and on top of that, responsibility for our own SIP project and mini-projects at SSV.

It wasn’t long before we found that we had overburdened ourselves. Even though we were in the SSV environment, we felt as though there weren’t enough hours in the day, there weren’t enough resources, there wasn’t time to stop and think, and all because of one sentence, “yes, I’ll do it.”

By Wednesday, we began to realise that we couldn’t keep it up and that we had to say “no.” But because of our nature at Sangh, we found it very difficult however, not saying “no” was impeding on the quality of our work. And so over the course of that day, we sat down and analysed what we were capable of and what were not, and from then on, we made a judgement call. Our work became far more efficient and our plans suddenly fell into play with those of SSV. However, saying "no" was still difficult because of what we have been taught.

The core message from this, is that even though we at Sangh believe that we should act on the behalf of society, we should not act blindly. We know what our capabilities are and so we have to act in according to those capabilities and what our intensions are. We must assess every situation in which we are asked to do something, and judge whether it will hinder or assist our progress towards our end goal. If you truly believe that you cannot do something, by simply saying “sorry, but I really can’t do it” you may have just driven you project towards its goal ten fold. Remember, saying “no” is not a bad thing so long as the intentions are good.