Would you read a little bit from the book for us?

Sure.

I have a, I have a, a list early on in the book that I titled Why We Don't Say No.

So here are some reasons why we don't say no.

We don't say no because we wanna be liked.

We don't say no because we want to be loved.

We don't say no because we don't know what we want.

Mm-hmm

[laughs]

But it, but it wasn't about...

I mean, luckily it wasn't about me, like the stories were not about my own life.

It wasn't Sex and the City.

Uh, it was, you know, speaking to experts about, you know...

I mean, after a while, how many times can you write the same story about, you know, pleasing a man? Um, so working for Glamour, w- what I was putting out into the world, it, I mean, it was a job that I needed, and it was the first job I had where I could l-live, uh, live in my own apartment.

It allowed me to rent my own apartment where I didn't have a roommate.

I love that.

We'll talk about some of your other work in a little while, but I wondered if you could start off by telling us about The Power of No.

The Power of No is a book that I... came up with about four years ago.

And the impetus for that was in 2015.

So 11 years ago, I gave a commencement address to an all-girls private boarding school in upstate New York.

They'd asked me, and I said yes.

And I was a little surprised.

I'd never been asked to give a commencement address before.

But why can't she want things?

yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Then there was the whole thing about, you know, she was in an assisted living facility.

Right.

You know, some of the women came in, and then they had to call someone from the hospice to, like, check that she was dead.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And to, like, do the whole, like...

And this didn't happen for, like, another hour.

I mean, not me, so—

[laughs]

So that might be part of what's, of, of what's making me resist.

But, you know, the, the other thing I was, I was gonna say that I, or just remembered, is that once social media became, um, widely used and I started interacting with social media, namely Twitter, and this would have been in about 2010, uh, y- I, I started to s- you know, r- really see the ubiquity of certain conversations.

And on the one hand, that was exciting to see how things, um, were, were talked about and evolved and backlash, et cetera, et cetera.

But it also felt a little bit performative, and I wonder whether part of my rejection of some popular culture products isn't a, a, a rejection of, um, a, a kind of perm- performativity, uh, a- a- around, uh, or, or, or identity marking around what you watch and what you don't watch and what you think is cool and what you don't think is cool.

You know, the, the whole ...

Th- the famous line, um, about, "I wouldn't wanna be a member of a club that would have me" does apply to me somewhat, and it applies to me going back to my childhood.

What is it that you like about LOMO?

What do you think about it, Anna?

Uh, I love that interpretation as well, uh, to be honest, and I'm going to, like, kind of take it forward, I think, um, in, in myself, because I, I have bought into the idea, u- uh, unfortunately, that, um, that rejection can be, and often is, a last word.

Uh, which is part of the reason why I'm trying to kind of reframe rejection, um, as part of my New Year's resolution.

[chuckles] Uh, I...

But, uh, the idea that it's a door- that a door closing is the opening of another one, I think that's a lot about faith, and I know that your caller talked about, you know, her spiritual practice, and, and I think those things are very much related.

Having faith that, um, an, an obstacle, uh, is not- uh, we don't have to see it as an obstacle, but as a kind of, um, uh, a, a road [chuckles] a road that we need to take or that we're being forced to take.

I'm not sure if that's, if that's making sense.

How do you know not to just keep going at it, Anna? [chuckles]