Finding an Alternative to "Yes"

When I was eighteen and on a campus tour at UCSC, I had a profound encounter. Someone on the tour asked a question… maybe about food plans or roommates or muraling the side of a building. It was Porter college in the 90ies; however, the answer was clearly and unequivocally a “no.” But the tour guide didn’t say no. Instead she said something that would say me with for the next twenty years. She said, “There’s always an alternative to ‘no.’ ”

For a long time now, I have been saying “yes!” A big enthusiastic “yes” when people ask me to join a cause, walk to San Francisco to protest, open up the rally with an anti-war poem, publish short stories, and read them to crowds of hundreds of people -- in arboretums and book stores. “Yes” is a fun thing to say! And as I grew into adulthood I said “yes” to committees, and leadership positions, and department chairs, and chairman, and board of directors. Until I said so many “yeses” that I was booked and double booked and triple booked. A few months ago I literally had two Google Hangouts for non-profits going on at the same time -- myself muted, screen frozen, trying to pretend that I could actually be everything everyone wanted me to be.

Anything is possible. Everything is not. When I say “yes” to one thing -- I am saying “no” to another. And conversely, by saying “no” to a thing, I am saying “yes” to another. No to a meeting means yes to family. No to a party means yes to a relaxing evening at home. No to a position means yes to free time. The key is the choice. And finding the courage to listen to my own heart: What do I want from me? I hate to disappoint. And for too long I have been focused on not disappointing others, at the cost of disappointing myself.

I do believe that all those times I was saying “yes” -- I was answering a call from the universe. But someone where in the mix, I lost my own incantation to the universe: I want to be a writer, and an artist, and a yogi. And my voice was muted by the winds of the world’s wants for me.

It’s time to break the chain -- it’s time for me to find an alternative to yes. And there’s always an alternative to “yes.”