India, Aug. 14 -- Growing up as an inveterate people-pleaser, I came rather late to the power of saying 'no'. As a child, a teenager, and then a young adult, I spent many hours of my life doing things that I actively disliked because I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I could actually refuse to do them. Now that I look back, I realise that I must have wasted an entire year (if not more) of my life saying yes to stuff that I really should have said a firm 'no' to.

Well, those days are long gone. Now that I am in my middle years, I have zero compunction about saying 'no' to people, no matter how awkward the interaction may become as a consequence. I think the transition occurred in the Covid years, when enforced solitude made mos...