Is it Yes or No?

I spend a lot of time wondering about things.  Should I do this?  Should I do that?  And I get so lost within the evaluative process that I forget the bottom line is always is it a yes or a no?  

I also forget, repeatedly, that if it isn’t YES then it is no.  I like it when it is just NO!  That is easy. Not doing that!  I don’t want to, I can’t or whatever, but I am definite about my abilities, capacities or willingness about a particular person, place or thing.  It is just a hard no.

But on the yes side of things, I get a little lost.  I mean, there are lots of things I want to do, but I can’t tell you for sure why I want them.  I think my ego wants a lot of things.  To say I am going to do this or that but when it comes to actually doing it, I founder.  In the hot minute I was talking to you about whatever, I wanted to do it, but now, upon further reflection, seems like a lot of work...

But then I get stuck in the should I or shouldn’t I phase...and I forget that if it isn’t a YES it is a NO.  And the no can come after I have spent a lot of time thinking about it, worrying about it, planning for it, partially starting it, or the no can come the second I realize it is not a yes.

Some people will tell you that it needs to be a HELL YES!  And I love it when I feel that way about someone or something.  But I have to be honest, there are times when I say HELL YES to a person, idea, job or the like, and someone other than me answers that question.  I say HELL YES, but that is all ego and social pressure.  Once the white hot spotlight of your attention fades, so does my enthusiasm to do whatever it is I just said HELL YES to!

My God, people are complicated.  I am complicated.  I exhaust myself on the regular.

I think it is great when we have certainty around a decision...but that isn’t always possible for me.  I can’t always get there.  And then I wonder if my lack of commitment is because I don’t really want to be doing the thing or because I am being lazy or because I am taking on too much.

Evaluating whether I am a yes or a no about things is helpful, but it doesn’t get me all the way there.  I feel lukewarm on lots of things.  Which is really a function of aging, and maturation.  I had energy to do all kinds of shit that I didn’t really want to do once upon a time.  Today, I think I have evolved to a place where I am more cautious and careful about what I fling myself into...well, I try to be.

For me asking the yes or no question just helps me stop long enough to consider why I am saying I am or am not going to do something.  I can’t always leap to yes or no.  Sometimes, I have to spend some time with the question to find out how I really feel once I peel back the layers of people pleasing, approval seeking, egoic manifestations and the like.  I have to add this extra layer where I evaluate who the fuck is answering the yes or no question!  There are many voices in my head and they are not always congruent and they often want very different things.  And sometimes that is very hard to sort out...

So is it yes or no is helpful but it doesn’t get me all the way there.  I have been absolutely HELL TO THE YES about something that five minutes later, I am like, “fuck that I don’t want to do that at all!”  I am tricky...and I guess I have done the work to figure that out about myself.  I can’t be relied upon all the time that my initial response is the one that I should and want to go with.  And then we can add for good measure, the fact that I often say no to things that I would actually benefit from.  No I don’t want to go there, no I don’t want to do that.  That is usually a social anxiety situation or just being tired of people.  All the people.  But I know that I frequently check the no box on things that would be good for me.  That would be helpful to my growth.  I just want to shut it all down.  And so I do.  Even though I suspect that saying yes in some of these situations would be good for me.

So yes or no, fuck, I don’t know. Which is where I end up a lot these days.  Teetering on the brink of a decision, that I have absolutely no idea is the “right” one.  I guess where I finally land is that the yes or no will lead me to a place I will like or not.  And then I will have the chance and opportunity to make another decision.  Ask another yes or no question. And make another decision...only time will tell whether I am happy about my answer.

Again, still...