Year of Yes

Hi!

No Way, Man

Yes Man was a romantic comedy film released in the winter of 2008 to mixed reviews. The movie centers on leading man Jim Carrey as a depressed, disillusioned, and divorced bank loan officer who attends a self-help seminar at the urging of his friends. Looking to make a radical change in his life, he commits to saying “yes” to every opportunity presented to him. In the end he finds fulfillment, purpose, and even love in the form of a genre-required manic pixie dream girl.

If you’re me—and for the sake of this you definitely are—you’re 12 and largely left to your own devices (those being a TV, a DVD/VCR player, and occasionally cable). Your dad’s dead by now, cold but not yet frostbitten in the ground he’s been buried under, and most importantly—You. Love. Comedies. Especially right now. Any will do, since you’re willing to laugh at just about anything if it promises a happy ending. A laugh is a laugh, and once Yes Man speeds through its theatrical run and hits basic cable you watch it, and you love it.

Years later, I’d learn that the movie is based off a book. In his memoir, Danny Wallace takes the advice of a stranger as a challenge and chronicles himself saying yes to every opportunity for a full calendar year. I don’t know if the book is any good. Despite it being the reason my Y.O.Y. exists, I’ve never read it. Not before I started this, not during the year I did it, and not even now as I’m writing this 6 months out. I imagine I’m responsible and found it a compelling read, but I’m not and I didn’t—so, I’m giving myself a pass.

As a movie it’s fine. From memory, every funny moment can more or less be seen in the trailer, just like the book though I didn’t bother to rewatch it before doing any of this. I’m positive that if not for the blinding light of nostalgia, this movie would fade into relative obscurity as a formulaic and forgettable addition to the rom-com canon. But I don’t wear sunglasses and I’ve always been charmed by the optimism the movie presents. How could I not be? The idea that life-long changes could be achieved by saying a simple yes is pretty tempting, and I wanted things to be different.

Why, Man?

The details don’t really matter. The long short of it is this: I was finally and officially on the other side of a lot of different events that happened in the 2-3 years prior. Some of it was good, some of it was bad, and one day it was over and none of it was happening to me anymore. I thought a lot about myself (my life, my goals, etc.) in the aftermath, and much like critics of Yes Man, I had mixed reviews. I’d become a frequent victim to my own indecision and anxiety (among other things). I’d essentially forgotten how to say yes and felt increasingly bad about it. A shame, since I used to say yes a lot more. I fell into a lot of things I loved this way: people, skills, hobbies...I owe some of the best parts of my life to saying yes.

Something to know about me is that I love New Years resolutions. I eschew popular public opinion on this, because unlike my counterparts, I've always found them fun despite my routine and chronic failure. Maybe it’s because I’m a January baby, so by proxy, my birthday buzzes with residual excitement every time the world gets older with me (Gregorian-ly speaking). Resolutions represent a low stakes/high reward challenge because win or lose, any progress is commendable and any lack thereof can be tossed into the proverbial graveyard so I can resurrect anew two weeks before my birthday. It’s the same rush I get after preening through my possessions or tossing junk from my apartment. I feel a little lighter, and a little freer. I got the idea in the fall, so when the New Year came, I codified it into personal law. Maybe because I was frustrated with feeling stagnant, because it gave me something to do, and because it was better than doing nothing at all.

Yes To Everything?

Ok so, kinda've. I have no idea how far Danny was willing to go, just know however far he was willing, I was not. With this in mind, I made some rules for saying yes (and no).

...Data?

I was really committed, so I came up with two things to keep track of for the entire year. I wanted to see, visually, what a Y.O.Y. felt like. It's incredibly easy to fudge a memory or impression, the brain does it all the time. Logging data was my failsafe against the brain's natural tendency towards revisionism. Also, I thought this would be fun.

Yes! Data!

This is pretty much the entire reason I coded this page and wrote all this stuff. First, my year in restrospective, complete with a breakdown of mixed days, just for fun.

Mixed Days (For the Year)

According to the data, I had a pretty good (slightly above average) year! Apparently, the margin between good and regular is the thinnest line in the world to me. The breakdown of mixed days was surprising if only because I didn't think Regular/Bad would be the most frequent, it certainly didn't feel like it.

Looking back at all the data is...odd. Most interesting (to me), is seeing how quickly my brain has already worked to revise my view on certain months of the last year. If you asked me what I thought was my best and worst month, the data would not support it. Mostly though, it's reassuring that my days were pretty good and even downright normal.

And now, to round off the data...

what now, man?

You’ve seen the data, you’ve read this page, so you know I did complete my Y.O.Y. and probably didn’t hate it (context clues). I have both a lot to say and nothing at all. The hardest part wasn’t saying yes so much as it was following through. But I did, and more often than not things were fine, sometimes even great! The funny thing about a Y.O.Y. is that at some point you start to forget you’re doing one, I did for a little anyways.

It was a good year, not always and not spectacularly so, but good all the same. I’m glad I did a Y.O.Y., it lead me into the outstretched arms of new people and back into a world I’d become scared to be a part of. This page got a lot longer than I anticipated, and while I could get super personal and wax poetic about all 365 days of the year I had, I probably won’t—I have a life to live! And regardless of the outcome, I’d like to get back to it. Anticlimactic, I know, but if you’ve got a question make yourself say yes to asking me about it. :o)

for fun, man!

Thanks, Man