I always have a stack of books from the library. I like to pick out a bunch at a time because I want to have choices, and sometimes I start one and don’t like it, which leaves me with other options still to choose. Also, I just stinkin’ love books. So I love to have a stack of them waiting for me.
I keep track of library books in a spreadsheet so I know when they’re due, and when I went to start a new book last week, I saw that one of them would be coming due in a week or so. Which means it would make the most sense for that to be my next read. As I looked at it, though, I thought: “But I want to read the OTHER books!”
Which prompted this pivotal thought: If I don’t really want to read this one now…do I really want to read it at all?
While this is really pretty minor in the grand scheme of things, this instance made me realize how many “Soft Yes’s” I make. Things that are good enough to say yes to and yet aren’t an emphatic, ecstatic “YES!”. Meals I’m not that excited about, coffee dates I’m not really looking forward to, trips to places that are new but haven’t been calling to me…
It can be so tricky to say No to a Soft Yes…they’re comfortable and easy and, worst of all, often unobjectionable. The problem is that if you keep accepting those Soft Yes’s, there’s no space when a big delicious YES! comes around.
Bit by bit, it feels like you’re doing things you like and enjoy, but suddenly a month goes by, or maybe even a year, and you realize you haven’t focused time and energy where or how you most wanted to. And that time passed below the radar because a Soft Yes (or even a parade of them) flies in that sleepy middle zone that doesn’t set off alarms.
So this is your alarm. This is your wake-up call. Where are you saying yes, merely going along contentedly, with time slipping by under your nose, while your biggest dreams or desires remain just out of reach?
In case you’re wondering, this is the face of a Soft Yes…