As people, we struggle with choices.
Did we make the right ones?

What if I told you that at the time, it could be that you just didn’t have the space to say no?

What if you were never given the space to be assertive?

What, never given the space to be assertive? Yes.

As children, our ability to be assertive is limited. As an adult, your choices or circumstances choke or allow your space to say no. For instance, your financial situation as an adult may dictate your ability to say yes or no to desired purchases.

Let me stop right here.

No, this isn’t a blog championing a lack of discipline or accountability.

“Our ability is only able to thrive through the stability of the platform and the availability of the space to say yes or no.”

The first glimpse of that “space” for most of us is usually going off to college. Which is why I liken this blog to the time I moved away from home to go to college in Houston, Tx.

I knew it was paramount that I left home. I wanted to try and shed the patterns of my adolescence and acquire new ones as a young adult. To be honest, I had been teeming to try out life my way. I felt like at home I was stuck in the same cycle of frustration and control.

So as I was sitting in my dorm room after my parents had finished helping me move, I settled in on two facts of my life:

1. Everything I did up until August 1st (the first day of band camp) was either allowed or permitted.
2. Everything I do from August 1st on was because I chose it.

Finally, the chance to be unapologetically me. Not in a disrespectful way to others but in respect to myself.

The support I would need to progress would come from the surroundings I nurtured on my own. These surroundings would be my new support system. They would become my safety net.

Sadly, I didn’t finish college in Houston and ended up moving back home. A retraction of that space I had cultivated.

You don’t realize what you have until it’s gone.