Saying no is hard. Especially when someone who is a genuinely good person, who has gone to bat for you asks you to do something. It gets worse when in the abstract, what they’re asking for is a good use of time.
In that position, we think that if we say no, we have broken their trust. However, does not break when you say no, it breaks when you say yes half-heartedly.
We punt to the future, but the moment of truth surely comes. When that person is depending on us, and we fail to deliver, that is when trust breaks.
That is when you have let people down, and worst of all, it was directly caused by your desire to not let them down.