When Yes Means No.

My Grandmother & Father in1933

May our ancestors smile
as they observe our choices.

My writing coach provided a subtle kick in the pants yesterday. It was not just encouragement, but a velvet provocation. "You need to finish your project." I have a little book about the cabin that was saved from a land sale several years ago. It's a good book that is nearly edited. Yet it has sat on the shelf for almost two months.

I've been thinking about the "Yes Man", a popular book and movie. the plot entails a supposedly true story (in the book, not the movie) about a man who says "yes!" to every request made to him for a year. My default answer for projects in my life has been yes. Yes, yes, yes. So many yeses that I often get about 90% of a project done before I put it away, often forever. The future makes a request that I can't refuse.

In the movie, as in my life, the man finds he can live only superficially when he is so scattered. He ends up discovering that stripping away many options and distractions is the only way he can get what he truly desires.

A sense of despair can even arise from so many choices and so many irons in the fire. One example from my life is working on this land and home. I have a hundred agenda items for my work on our little farm. A chicken coop, the barn organized, the cold frame insulated, the compost bins rebuilt etc etc. It feels like the tyranny of too much. Too much tending and beginning and fixing. It seems like our society is just waking up from being spoiled by so much busy work and consumption. And the result on a societal level and a personal level can be depression. The economy of choices and time can come crashing down.

So many in our world live with only the harshest of choices merely for survival. We, the rich with resources, have the privilege of choosing most details of our life. I think that our ancestors and the very Earth Herself watches us with anticipation and hope. What will I do with the choices I have at this moment? How do I want to say yes to being alive today?

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