What's Your Yes?

What’s Your Yes?

by Troy Cady

This past year our church made a deliberate choice to do less and to encourage our members to do less. Our year-long goal was to “create margin.”

I am convinced that busyness is one of the biggest impediments to a life well-lived. Learning to say “no” to the innumerable opportunities and demands that come our way is an important skill to develop, but it is hard to practice.

Our culture values “movers and shakers,” those who seem to have an endless amount of energy, and a limitless supply of new, exciting projects to pursue. We esteem those who get a lot done.

Just listen to how we introduce keynote speakers at special events to observe this phenomenon. We describe them in terms of their accomplishments. The longer the list, the higher the praise.

But what a person has done, however many degrees they’ve obtained, and what kinds of honors they’ve received can only tell you so much about the real person underneath all that activity. Who are they when they stop? Are they able to stop and just be present to themselves? Are they able to be present to others apart from the work that drives them, the purposes they are compelled to fulfill?  

I’d wager most of us would be under-whelmed by someone who told us that their resolution for next year is to slow down and rest more. Many would wonder, “Okay, fine: but what do you want to accomplish? What goals do you have that will help you really make a mark? What’s the next big thing for you?”

The problem is: if we keep living this way—just doing, doing, doing all the time—we can easily miss what’s most important right beside us. The most meaningful relationships we have are those that require a whole lot of wasteful time—time spent not to get something out of the other person or to change them as if they are a project of our choosing, but time spent just to be with them, to enjoy them, to be yourself with them. We need lots of no-agenda time, sharing thoughts, feelings, and stories that don’t have to get us anywhere in particular—except, perhaps, to a new place of togetherness, plain and simple.

At my church, we call this “a ministry of presence.” It’s a way of living that values just being together, listening and sharing, eating together, playing together, wasting time with each other just for the sake of friendship.

Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash

Grace is not a task. Peace cannot be forced. The things that matter most in life lie well beyond our strategic plans. At the end of it all, we will wonder most whether we loved well, not whether we accomplished enough.

As many of you reading this may be considering what resolution you might like to make this year to improve yourself, may I commend to you the simple practice of “creating margin” in your life so you can just be present to those right beside you each day? Do less to be more.

And, if this idea sounds like something you’d like to try, may I also mention one thing I learned this past year that could potentially be a help to you? I observed that many people, myself included, tend to think of creating margin as simply “saying no.”

But creating margin is more about your “yes” than your “no.” If what you are saying “yes” to is really important, the nos take care of themselves. The yes that is a full yes fills both your heart and your calendar. It becomes easier to say no when you know what your yes is.

I wonder: what’s your yes this year?

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The Rule of Yes

Play and dialectic go hand-in-hand. The first rule of all improvisation is the Rule of Yes. One person initiates an interaction with a word or gesture while the other person accepts (says yes to) what their partner has said or done.

A bit of dialogue, for example…

Me: I just got a new puppy.

You: (fill in your Yes response. Accept what is said and add to it. Such as…”That’s wonderful! Is it a boy or a girl?” This would prompt me to respond in turn and so on.)

Or, interactions can begin with something as small as a simple gesture. Words are not even needed to get the interaction going. For example…

Martha enters. (Notice: the interaction has already begun with a simple entrance. Simply “showing up” can be powerful.)

Sandra offers her a seat. (Notice: the interaction continues with even the smallest of gestures.)

Martha takes the seat.

Sandra: How are you today?

Martha: (you supply the response. Think Yes, even if you say something like…”Not good.”)

In the first example, the statement asks for a response.  In the second example, the offer to have a seat invites conversation.

This is the essence of play. It is spontaneous, inviting and open to invitation, surprising and unpredictable. Now, you may not have been surprised by the above interactions but that is only because I suggested one way of playing out the scene.

Another way of playing out the first scene could be…

Me: I just got a new puppy.

You: I did, too, but my neighbor ran over it with his car. She died.

That would appear a little more surprising, would it not? Nevertheless, the first way of playing out the scene is just as surprising, even if it seems less so.

The second scenario could be played out this way:

Martha enters. Sandra offers her a seat.

Martha: I don’t feel like sitting, actually. I’ve been sitting all day.

Sandra: Really? What have you been doing?

Martha: (you provide the response. Surprise us.)

In both cases, the “yes” comes in the form of “accepting” what was offered by adding something to it. Even though Martha says “I don’t feel like sitting” her statement turns out to be a “yes” statement because she adds to it: “I’ve been sitting all day.”  

This prompts our curiosity: What has she been doing? We want to find out.

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“But play does not always involve two or more people,” someone might say.

Yes, it does—even when you are playing by yourself. There is an internal dialectic going on.

This piece of writing is an example. There are no literal conversation partners for me as I write this, but one or two other people are supplied by my imagination.

When my daughter was younger, she played this way with her stuffed animals. Sometimes I would listen to her down the hall, playing by herself, carrying on all kinds of dialogue between Lamby and Max.

What interests me most about those interactions is that my daughter did not have to be taught The Rule of Yes—she simply followed it. How refreshing!

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How do you do with this? Do you find yourself mostly living according to the Rule of Yes or do you at times live more according to No? Think of some different relationships you have. How do they vary from one to the other? More Yes or more No?

In some future posts about this, we’ll consider how sometimes we can say Yes but it feels like No to the other person. In turn, a No can be spoken in the spirit of Yes. Statements can feel like questions and questions are sometimes used as statements. In either case…

Play is open. Play is Yes, even when we say no.