Let’s face it, we are confronted with a lot of no day after day. The reasons why we can’t or shouldn’t mount and chip away at our lives until we are left living a life we don’t recognize. We find ourselves living a half life. We do about half of what we want and only half of that holds any real meaning for us. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In order to begin changing the direction of our lives we have to start saying yes.

Yes, I am going to read that book, take that class, go to that meeting, volunteer for that charity, go to lunch with friends, begin a creative project, sew a quilt, get a new job…well you get the idea. There are a million ways to bring more life into our life, endless ways to create deeper meaning and connections, and it all starts by saying yes. Finally we say yes to all the things we’ve run out of reasons for saying no to. Things we’ve been scared of trying or something we’ve been turning away from year after year. We say yes to what interests us, to what makes us feel whole and carries deeper meaning for us. The ways to cultivate a richer life may be infinite but saying yes is what always opens the door.

Saying yes made me start this blog. I wanted to clarify the things I was sure of and it ended up opening the door to things I’d never imagined. Being clear about how we understand the world and the lessons we’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, leads us to deeper connections and ideas we hadn’t noticed before. These things we know well become a platform to dive into what remains mysterious and helps us move forward into the unknown with a greater confidence. What paved the way for me were books and people, eclectic ways of living and eccentric ideas and although each of our journeys will be different the common denominator is saying yes.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes a carefully placed no is absolutely necessary for our well being. But let’s make sure the no comes from the truth of what’s inside and not just from fear of living. Life can be tumultuous and scary, it asks everything we’ve got at times. It’s also filled with incredible beauty and subtleties that we have to willingly open to and engage. This requires saying yes. If we want to live the fullness life offers and not just a shell of an existence we have to be willing to risk the consequences of what yes might bring.

So where do you need a resounding yes in your life?

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