The Power of "No, thanks"
A default answer for protecting enough
Denis Diderot, the French philosopher who co-edited the Encyclopédie (arguably the most ambitious intellectual project of the 18th century), lived a life lacking in material wealth but abundant in relationships and professional success.
Then, in 1765, to help him fund his daughter’s dowry, Catherine the Great bought his library for £1,000 and agreed to pay him a stipend for being her private librarian. With his newfound wealth, Diderot bought himself a beautiful scarlet dressing gown to replace his old robe, a simple garment he had been the absolute master of.
His Paris study—once home to a straw chair, a wooden table, a simple rug, a wood plank holding a few books, and a couple of unframed smoky prints—suddenly seemed vulgar next to his exquisite new robe. Trying to solve this aesthetic discord, Diderot replaced everything with matching luxuries. Not long after, financial distress followed.
A multitude of consequential purchases, following the purchase of a single always-wanted item, is known as the Diderot Effect. We all are susceptible to it. Clothes, tech toys, and kitchen gadgets have been where I have fallen for this trap, by saying yes to the scarlet robe instead of saying, “No, thanks.”
As if the Diderot Effect wasn’t risky enough, a consumeristic society benefits from you falling into this trap and will attack your “enough” from all possible angles.
“No, thanks” as a shield against overconsumption
Back in early 2015, after years of watching what I ate and consistently hitting the gym to achieve what I would later consider my best shape ever, my weight started to move in sync with the ASX 200 and eventually peaked, ten years later, at an impressive 30-kilogram increase. My secret: never saying no to deliciously engineered edible mixtures of refined carbohydrates and solidified fats.
I once met someone who called herself a citizen of the world and was the proud owner of a tri-folded A1 world map with circles drawn all over it. She had stories for days, photos taken in some of the most unique spots around the world, and thousands of US dollars in debt, including some from loan sharks who, she said, were impatiently waiting for her return home.
Spending money on experiences is certainly better than buying pizzas and ice cream—I do speak from experience. But given how in-vogue experiences are often expensive, overconsumption of them is likely to lead to crippling debt, which in turn will provide some of the most impactful negative experiences.
Whether it is things or experiences, the pattern is the same: saying yes without considering your enough slowly erodes it.
“No, thanks” as a shield against overcommitment
Saying yes to everything that seems like an opportunity to win is the curse of the Type A modern person. Saying yes to everything that seems like an opportunity to help is the curse of the people pleaser. Saying yes to anything without considering everything else you have already said yes to is a sure way to end up overcommitted and resentful.
The factory worker who takes on extra shifts each weekend so that he can afford the private school tuition of his adolescent twin boys has no time to check how they are doing at school. Always tired and stressed, he feels trapped. The company pays him just enough that working weekends feels financially mandatory—while destroying any chance of finding something better.
He is not greedy. He is simply surrounded by expectations, all of which sound reasonable in isolation. Without a clear sense of what enough looks like for his work and family life, every request feels like something he cannot refuse.
“No, thanks” as a shield against overstimulation
In the late 90’s, during the Mediterranean summer holidays, I used to get extremely bored from the time I devoured whatever nonna had cooked for lunch until the time when the adults in the neighbourhood considered the sun safe enough for my friends and me to go and restart the play that had been cut short a few hours before. I miss getting bored like that.
A few years later, a new type of deeper-than-wider glowing screen, cabled to a plastic suitcase-like noisy machine, which was itself cabled to the telephone socket, presented a better attention-grabbing alternative than the good old TV and quite often a better alternative than spending time with now-teenage friends and foes.
Only recently has YouTube started to give me the same unsettling feeling that cigarettes gave me fifteen years ago, after smoking them for six years before deciding that I was done with that vice.
Saying “No, thanks” to YouTube, leaning into boredom, and starting to chip away at this meaningful hobby of writing feels like a win in practicing my version of enough.
Protecting enough
Rather than a number you reach one day, “enough” is the point at which saying “No, thanks” feels less like deprivation and more like protection.
Each time you reject a purchase, an invitation, or another glowing screen, you are not rejecting life, but affirming which parts of life you want to live more fully.
The world will keep handing new scarlet robes. Our job is to remember that we do not have to accept them, especially when what we already have is quietly, stubbornly, enough.
I’d love to hear from you: What’s a recent example of you falling for the Diderot Effect, and another one where you said “No, thanks” to a shiny offer, then later realised you’d just protected your “enough”?
Until next time,
Vani