The price of saying yes is sometimes the life you no longer have time to build.

Every yes spends something that never appears on the invoice. The meeting, the favour, the extra commitment all cost hours, and hours are the raw material of the life you keep saying you will build once things settle. Nothing feels stolen because nothing is taken at once. It leaves in acceptable increments.

A useful habit is to price a yes in the currency it actually costs. Before agreeing, name what will not happen because of it, in specific terms rather than vague ones. If you cannot name the thing being displaced, you probably have not looked. Some yeses still deserve to be said, but say them knowing what they are buying.