June 9: #8 Yes man day
Phil: I wasn’t as tested this year on Yes Man Day, compared to last year, when I found myself buying a brand new Macbook Pro. I suppose not every Yes Man Day can be that huge. But it was still a pretty good reminder to continue to be open to things. I did end up saying yes to a few things I would have said no to otherwise. The first “yes” was tiny, but still pretty different from my regular day-to-day. It was: “Do you want milk in your coffee?” I drink it black, every single day. This time, I had milk in there. Not a big deal. But it was still pretty nice to have something different and to at least be reminded of how rigid my mind seems to get about things I do in my daily routines. I also said “yes” to taking a detour on a morning walk with my girlfriend in which we found ourselves in a thrift store looking at really weird and hilarious shirts. I ended up buying one for $1 that said “BUSTIN’ IT NIGHTLY.” So that pretty much sums up how Yes Man day was for. Otherwise, I just went to work, where I basically have to say yes to everything anyway, haha. I almost want to do more of this throughout the month on my own to continue to put it to the test.
Bruce: Another of Year One’s challenges! It’s an easy one to add and I think it will be a reoccurring one. I noticed I had to train myself to say “yes” to things automatically. It didn’t come naturally and in a few occasions I had to rethink my answer aloud. Of course I got the obligatory three or four people that offered absurd invitations like “come to Italy“,“ come do a crazy skateboard trick on a giant hand rail“ but for the most part there weren’t any real Internet trolls. An interesting side effect I found was this sense of overwhelming plan-making. It’s rare that I am just sitting around and I probably say yes to more plans that are offered to me than not, especially as a people pleaser, but I had a few situations where multiple people asked me conflicting plans simultaneously. It was pretty much a first come first serve by a slight margin of time at that point, still I somehow felt wrong saying no for any reason! Here are some surprise things that happened: I ended up mowing the lawn for my housemate and after I said yes he said he would pay me 20 bucks! I’m going to collaborate with a musical friend now because he asked me to (completely aware that it was yes-man day, the sly bugger). I signed up for at Michael’s card while I was buying craft supplies. I was invited to an outdoor meal with friends and told them in full disclosure that although I was broke I would join them and then I ended up just getting fed free food by generous friends and as a bonus I also said yes when a brewmaster came by and offered us new free beers because we were the last people in the patio area of the pub! Probably most shocking to me, I spent some of the night catching up with two old friends while trying weird new appetizers at Dave and busters and watching UFC, which if I’m being honest, is a sentence I would never expect myself to say! I am now en route to a friend’s house for who knows what?!I think one of the most illuminating aspects of this challenge for people is how committing to things in the moment impulsively and agreeably really just makes life a series of adventures as opposed to the weird decision-paralyzing allergy to commitment that our generation tends to have with this whole “fear of missing out” epidemic and crisis of choice. Just DO THINGS.
Tomorrow's challenge: #9 Listen to a full album by a band you've decided you don't like