Learning to do the Nigella ‘No’ changed my life
It’s a shame Nigella Lawson only shared her four “edicts for an easier existence” four decades into my lifespan. I could have done with knowing the 60-year-old TV chef ’s dry shampoo hack, for example – leaving the product in overnight rather than blasting your greasy hair “as you’re about to leave the house” – before I’d suffered the indignity of turning up at the pub looking like Madame de Pompadour.
I didn’t realise it was OK to relax about food temperature at mealtimes, either. Now that I know dinner doesn’t have to be “piping hot” for it to be enjoyable, my blood pressure will no longer have to reach perilous levels as I repeatedly holler “dinner time!” – and my marriage might stand a hope in hell of surviving. Taking action “immediately”, whether it be with that pile of washing or embarking on an exciting adventure, is another great tip.
But Lawson’s most important life edict happens to be something I’ve already mastered: the art of the “quick no”. Delaying replying “because you feel guilty about not giving the response wanted and worried about disappointing people”, advised Lawson, “helps no one, least of all the supplicant who lives in deluded hope.”
My delayed responses were getting me into hole after hole, until my husband overheard me telling an LA school mum that “joining the summer fête committee sounds like fun” – and staged an intervention.
Rather than leaving the door open, he suggested, how about just saying “no”? Immediately. There and then. Once I started doing it, I couldn’t stop. It really is “the second-best answer” anyone could wish for.