The Year for Yes!

One year ends and the next begins. We stay up late to celebrate the new year. We make our resolutions and raise our glasses high. We hug and we kiss. It's a time to look to the future with excitement. Oh the possibilities...

We are sure this year will be better. This will be the year that we lose weight, get fit, get strong. We will get control of our finances, pay off our debt, get a better job. This year we will fall in love, get married, have a baby, buy a house, buy a car, and go on a dream vacation. This year will be perfect! We are sure of it.

In reality this year will look much like last year unless we do something radically different. And let's be truthful, radically different is uncomfortable and unsustainable. It won't be long before all the big dreams and resolutions fall by the wayside, dissolving in the mists of daily stress.

I made no resolutions this year. I went to bed early and was asleep long before the new year rolled in. The first few days of January I contemplated things like being kind to myself and being forgiving of others. Perhaps I should spend more time in meditation or read more inspirational books.

Then I was offered an opportunity. I needed time to think about it. Within a few days I was offered a different opportunity and then another one. What to do? How to choose? It was all so exciting but would I be able to live up to what was being asked of me? Would I have enough time to nap?  

In the past I would 'be reasonable'. Right now, today, I don't feel reasonable. Right now I want to seize the moment. I want to experience what life has to offer. So I said yes. Yes I'd love a job, thank you. Yes I'd be happy to teach yoga at the high school. Yes, I do believe teaching yoga at a prison would be a fantastic experience for me.

Then the yes spilled over into my daily life. Yes you can paint your bedroom ceiling with water colours. Yes I'll come to that meeting with you. Yes we can play a game together. Yes you can help me bake cookies. Yes! Yes! Yes!

Too often we don't say yes. There is no good reason not to say yes. Maybe because we think it will be too hard, too messy, too painful. Maybe because we feel like we will fail or we think people will laugh at us or maybe because we feel like we just don't have time. But life is for living, for gathering up experiences.

So this year I am saying yes. I am making a choice to say yes to all the little things that make life a grand adventure. Yes may be messy. Yes may be hard. Yes might be painful and yes might even make me cry. But yes will also be fun. Yes will be exciting. Yes will expand my horizons and yes will help me grow.

This is the year for yes. Life is a grand adventure and this year I am saying yes.