saying yes

[metaphortunate]

lightreads writes:

I was there because I want to live a big life, I want to do the hard thing, I want to be the one who said yes.

Which, now that I have seen someone say it, is the best way to describe the painful and struggling answer I am always making to this poem by Constantine Cavafy:

For some people the day comes
when they have to declare the great Yes
or the great No. It’s clear at once who has the Yes
ready within him; and saying it,

he goes from honor to honor, strong in his conviction.
He who refuses does not repent. Asked again,
he’d still say no. Yet that no—the right no—
drags him down all his life.

I do not think I have ever had the great Yes ready within me. I suspect that I have always been one of life's great natural Noes. But one who has said Yes anyway, because fuck, who is my own character to tell me what my life is going to be like? I'm not the boss of me! I don't care if it is the right No. I too have stepped up to things because I want to be the one who said Yes.

Comments

[wired]

I admire the big Yes people. And also, sometimes, the principled big No people. I kind of admire them from a distance, like one admires astronomical events that are far beyond our little biosphere.

I aspire to be a little yes person. A person who can be counted on to yes, feed you dinner, and yes, make that deadline, and yes, give you a third bedtime hug because you are worried about global warming.

The biggest decisions in my life have either felt so natural that they don't even seem like a decision to be made -- are we gonna have kids? fuck yeah, when can we start?. Or they have only showed up afterwards as being important. I screwed this guy with a ponytail and a Mustang and a trenchcoat, and things just sort of....yeah, here we are.

The things in my life, at least so far, have not seemed huge in the moment. I blame my natural cowardice ;) My ambition has to sneak up behind me and get it in under the radar.

Sometimes, like a curse, I can hear people telling me I could be So Much More. But what if I don't want to be?

I am glad that your character is not the boss of you.

[metaphortunate]

I have been trying for easily 15 or 20 years just to be a person who can be counted on. Who if I say I'll show up, I'll show up. Who if I say I'll have it on Monday, I'll have it ready on Monday.

It turns out I am shit at this and maybe I should try and figure out other strengths, because reliability ain't it. ;___; I think it's really important but maybe after 15 or 20 years of not improving very much it's time to try focusing on something else.

[norah]

I do not think I have ever had the great Yes ready within me. I suspect that I have always been one of life's great natural Noes. But one who has said Yes anyway, because fuck, who is my own character to tell me what my life is going to be like? I'm not the boss of me! I don't care if it is the right No. I too have stepped up to things because I want to be the one who said Yes.

...soul sister. You know this about me too. It is what that whole damn tattoo is about, that and being where you are and saying yes to it, which is maybe a little contradictory so it is a good thing I contain multitudes, innit.

[cahn]

That's a really cool poem.

I think, to my shame, I am neither a great Yes or a great No, either of which seems worthy; but rather a waffler, little yeses and little nos and not even very much of either. (Though I guess the original gran refiuto was a waffler too, wafflers unite?)

But one who has said Yes anyway, because fuck, who is my own character to tell me what my life is going to be like? I'm not the boss of me!

Oh. I like this! I think this will have to be my new motto.