As we made our way through Times Square, myriads of shapes, patterns and colors pulled my attention in all different directions. To kick off Thanksgiving break, my mom had booked us on a six-hour walking tour of New York City — the real New Yorker’s way to see the city, as she and the guide asserted while double-decker busses with slouched-back tourists passed us by.
I hadn’t been to New York since 2005, and one of my more vivid memories of the city consisted of a woman’s leg getting caught in the closing door of a subway during rush hour — quite a traumatic scene for a Southern California kid used to beach-town suburbia. After the incident, we stayed above ground and in more wide open spaces, such as Central Park, where New York was the least New York-ish. This trip, I was determined to embrace the city for everything it had to offer — including its crowds and craziness.
I was surprised by the amount of people dressed in costumes in Times Square — it may as well have been Halloween or Hollywood Boulevard. As we passed the sight of the ball-drop, a mob of bright red suddenly caught my eye. In an epic battle of Sesame-Street-turned-Sesame-Square, a police officer was breaking up a fight between five different men dressed as Elmo who were all trying to claim the same block of tourists. As I watched the comical brawl unfold, a fellow bystander — who just happened to be Minnie Mouse — approached me and gestured that we take a picture together in front of the scene.
“Picture! Picture,” Minnie began to yell at me. “Come on, picture!”
As I awkwardly tried to explain to the scary-looking version of the beloved childhood character why I didn’t want a picture with her, our tour guide, Nathan, shuffled us along.
“It’s time you learn a valuable lesson here in New York,” he said a few blocks later. “And that is the power of ‘no, thank you.’”
He explained how it’s impossible to avoid people approaching you on the streets of New York, and you just have to accept being harassed as a reality.
“These guys will come up to you with all sorts stuff, like free rap CDs that are never quite free,” Nathan went on. “Once again, it’s all in the power of ‘no, thank you.’”
Surely enough, a few blocks later, an aspiring Kanye West tried to drop the disc with his latest single on me.
“No, thank you,” I said and kept walking.
Near the Brooklyn Bridge, a very much alive Michael Jackson tried to involve me in his next flash mob dance.
“No, thank you,” I said and kept walking.
On my way down to the subway, a woman tried to convince me I needed a very real-looking yet fake designer purse.
“No, thank you,” I said and kept walking.
It was empowering to say the least and not because I like shutting people down. I’m typically the type who enjoys meeting and engaging with strangers, but in environments like the bustling streets of a city filled with vendors and Elmo mobs, too much conversation quickly becomes a curse.
It was such a simple solution — “no, thank you” — and I found myself oddly surprised at its effectiveness. It may sound silly, as it’s a term I’ve known my whole life, but I realized that I rarely use it. I’m much quicker to pick up a fake phone call as I’m nearing a group passing out flyers by Newcomb than I am to say “no, thank you” when offered one. Likewise, I’d much sooner put my head down and ignore the food court worker sticking freaky-looking samples in my face than I would say “no thank you” to the potential food poisoning.
The beauty of “no, thank you” is that it’s short and sweet. In today’s world, it sometimes feels like saying no comes with a negative connotation — if you’re going to say it, you better have a good reason. In New York, I was reminded that I can say “no,” and there’s nothing rude about it. Just as saying “thank you” is polite, so is saying “no, thank you,” especially when delivered with a smile.
One day I may be navigating the streets of New York on a daily basis, but there are many other areas of my life that can benefit from the phrase now. As people change, schedules become more full and priorities shift, and three little words can be the difference between a wishy-washy settlement or an affirmative, truthful stance.
At perhaps the busiest time in my 21 years of life, my world feels like its own personal Times Square filled with a plethora of opportunities, decisions and routes to navigate. I’m rediscovering the power of “no thank you,” and it’s been quite liberating. It may have taken a selfie-hungry Minnie Mouse and six hours of walking to teach me this lesson, but it came at the perfect time. Now more than ever, I’m thankful for “no thank you.”
Katherine Firsching is a Life Columnist for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at life@cavalierdaily.com.
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