The Big Yes
Gaining the ability to say “no” by having something worth defending
In an increasingly loud world, the ability to say “no” to things becomes something of a superpower. At times, it feels like one in the literal sense because it seems to be not fucking real or achievable. However, there do exist annoying people who are obnoxiously good at this. What are they doing that the rest of us overstretched bastards aren’t?
As with most things, the answer is probably a lot of things. There is one worth keying in on that packs a decent punch: they have something in their life worth protecting their time for. In a world of things to say “yes” to, they have a yes that stands above them all. Something so important to them that the noise tends to fall by the wayside, leaving them with an intense, singular focus.
So perhaps the solution for people who can’t seem to say no isn’t so much developing a muscle through brute-force repetition of will, but rather cultivating a single thing so delightful that saying “no” becomes almost obvious?
Have something worth defending
Parents of newborn babies tend to have fewer issues saying no to things. The reason for this is pretty clear: if they skirt their immediate responsibilities, the small thing that looks like a hybrid version of a potato and themselves is likely to die. Probably can’t have that.
To most, a couple turning down an invite to a BBQ because they have a one-month-old baby at home feels like a bit of a non-issue. The choice is so obvious. Even if the couple would much rather go to a BBQ than get screamed at by a drooling emperor, they tend not to go, and it’s given very little thought.
Yet once that emperor stops drooling, and sometimes it feels like that’s all that changes, suddenly we feel the stretch. Maybe we should stay late at work, go to the networking event, or go out with that friend who’s back in town? And none of those things are bad! But when we try to do all of them, our attention splits, and suddenly it can feel as though life begins to happen to you. Nothing ever seems to get done, we drop balls all over the place, and it feels like we’re doing 90 things but never actually accomplishing anything.
Family, Work, Scene
Author Ryan Holiday was once given the advice “Family, Work, Scene... pick 2.” He was an up-and-coming author, which comes with some level of notoriety and privilege. This “problem” was exacerbated by the fact that he was often working with professional sports teams, so he’d routinely be invited to the big game or other important events.
So which one was going to suffer? His family? He decided that should probably stay. His work? Well, he’d been working fairly hard at that, so it seemed foolish to walk away just as things were taking off. That left The Scene. The parties, events, and opportunities to have fun at the expense of the other two things. Holiday had forged himself two Big Yeses: his family and his writing. Everything else detracts from those.
For people who feel like they can’t say no, it’s important to realize they sure as hell are saying no, it’s just not as obvious, which of course feels a lot better. They’re saying no to their partners, kids, and themselves all day long. Holiday recognizes how easy this trap is to fall into, so he keeps a picture of his family on his desk not just for the same reason the rest of us do, but also to keep a reminder that for every engagement he accepts, those are the people he’s saying no to.
It doesn’t need to be grandiose
There’s no rule that your Big Yes needs to be eradicating malaria or advancing pediatric oncology. It just needs to be something you give a shit about.
That can be your family, your dog, or your writing. It might be your garden, your guitar, your stamp collection, or the basement train set that started as a “little hobby” and now appears to have its own municipal zoning requirements.
The point isn’t that these things are impressive, but rather that they give you a tangible thing that gets harmed by not saying “no.”
Without a Big Yes, everything competes on the same playing field. A work thing, a networking thing, a friend thing, a favour, a group chat, a “quick coffee,” a scroll through the hate machine in your pocket. It all starts to feel equally urgent, even when most of it absolutely is not. But once there’s something you’re actively protecting, the equation changes.
You’re not just saying no to a BBQ, a meeting, or some event you only kind of want to attend. You’re saying yes to being rested enough to write tomorrow, or walking your dog while he still has good legs, or being present with your kids instead of snapping at them for acting their age.
This is where I think people get tangled up. We assume the thing we protect needs to be enormous. We think purpose has to arrive wearing a cape. We were told as kids we could be astronauts, Olympians, presidents, and other deeply normal career paths for a six-year-old who also ate glue that one time.
And sure, maybe some people do have a capital-P Purpose. Good for them. I hope their cape fits. Assholes.
For the rest of us, a meaningful life can easily be built out of the smaller devotions we keep returning to. There are things that seem ridiculous to defend until we realize they are quietly holding the whole operation together.
A Big Yes doesn’t have to justify your existence. That’s enough pressure to stop you dead in your tracks, and at that point the siren call of Netflix binging becomes too loud to ignore. The Big Yes just has to matter enough that when the world asks for another piece of you, you can see what that piece was meant for.
And if you pinball your way through a 90-thing day, saying yes to every mildly shiny request that wanders past, you probably won’t notice what truly deserved your attention in the first place.
But saying no feels mean
For people born (or more accurately: raised) to please, saying no tends to feel like failure. You’re letting somebody down, or perhaps you’re forgoing a chance at being wanted or valued. Perhaps an opportunity such as this will never come again? Again, this line of thinking is making a hilarious amount of assumptions and future forecasting. Respectfully, you aren’t skilled enough to tell the future. Remember, you ate glue that one time.
As cold as it sounds, there are people who matter and people who do not. I mean everyone matters... but... you know... a lot of people don’t. When you try to please them all, you fail everyone. When it comes to opting out of things for the purpose of focusing on your Big Yes, only the unimportant people will care. I love the old Dr. Seuss quote: “the people who mind don’t matter and the people who matter don’t mind.”
And when you can attend something with the people who matter in your life, you can bring more of yourself to it. You’re not showing up disheveled and run-down by life, but rather excited, engaged, and present.
How to find your Big Yes
When you ask somebody what truly lights them up in life, you’re often met with a shoulder shrug and an admission that they’re just trying to get through their day. And for many, that’s probably exactly what they’re supposed to be doing in that moment.
If you’re a parent of a tiny person, or a very busy set of bigger ones, life can be hectic, and there may not be a ton of time for you to explore what lights you up. For that particular season in your life, that may actually be the point. But it is a season, and the trick is to recognize when that season has changed and you have some room for yourself.
If you do happen to have some time to explore but don’t know where to start, here are some things you can try:
What did you do when you were younger when time seemed to slip away? Perhaps you drew, or wrote stories or terrible songs. The flow states of our youth are often cast aside as kid stuff, but they can be an important window into what your Big Yes might be.
What can you do that ends with a win even if it doesn’t go to plan? Doomscrolling is unlikely to bear much fruit, but if you putter around in your garden, at least you might get a carrot or something. The real win ends up being you didn’t allow the hate machine in your pocket to hijack your nervous system for an evening.
What can you do that benefits the most people? In a woo-woo kind of way, helpful energy spreads through the interconnectedness of all things, which is skookum. In a more grounded biological way, humans evolved to spark off of co-operation, so it intrinsically feels nice to do things for others. Your Big Yes doesn’t need to be something in this category, but it’s hardly the worst thing you can try if you’re looking for the thing that lights you up.
It’s nice... promise
The world is just so damn noisy, and as someone who spends a lot of time noticing this, I don’t see it quieting down anytime soon. It’s easy to sit amongst the noise and feel hopeless because things seem to suck so badly. But that’s not entirely accurate; that’s just what noisy distraction feels like. Life doesn’t need to be quite so frantic and complicated, and your eye roll at that statement is very likely part of a story you’ve adopted.
Finding your Big Yes has a funny way of calming everything else down. It doesn’t solve the ills of the world or change the direction we’re headed, but it does give us a sliver of bandwidth to recognize that it’s not all on fire. Perhaps finding your Big Yes gives you the energy to discover solutions more readily, or maybe it gives you the energy to help a friend, or maybe it just allows you to stop pinballing through everyone else’s priorities long enough to remember which drooling emperor actually deserves your attention.