As I was chilling at home today, i decided to watch Yes Man.
It was basically about this guy who never said yes to ANYTHING. So much so that he was missing out on life and then sat and wondered why his life was depressing….
Well one day he joined this program where he had to say yes to every opportunity. Well once he did, his life became great and all these great things started to happen because i was basically the domino effect.
Yes i know it’s an old movie, like the beginning of this year type of old but i was good. I thought i was the only person that i kind of had a strong effect on. Well apparently im not. There is a real life yes man.
Well that’s not his official title
But it is a blogger that i found that wrote a post about his experience when he decided to be a yes man for a week.
My week of saying “Yes!”
On Monday afternoon, I was working on a presentation with a few fellow math geeks that was due for Tuesday.
Since it was a bank holiday, the maths department was closed. But as we were walking past the entrance, we saw some guy get in with a key. After a moment’s hesitation, I decided to say “Yes!” to the opportunity, called after him, and asked him to let us in. After a moment’s negotiation, he agreed. (Victory for saying Yes
)
As we stayed there, long into the night, a friend mentioned he’d like to do a Eurotrip in the summer. I think that’s a brilliant idea, so we got talking about it, and we might do it together this summer. Yet we probably never would have talked about it if we didn’t sneak into the math department and stay there all day.
Of course, Monday was just the beginning. The really crazy stuff started on Tuesday…
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On Tuesday, I went to a dance show, because some of my breakdancer friends asked me to, and I decided to say “Yes!” to the request. I didn’t know what the show was going to be like. It turned out to be a huge 3-hour show of all the dance-related societies at the university, and it was absolutely awesome!
That alone would have been worth saying “Yes!”.
But that’s not the end of it. Because I went to the dance show, I met a friend of a friend (whom I’ve met once before) in the queue. We got chatting and had a fun time at the dance show.
Then, out of the blue, she calls me on Thursday morning (I didn’t even give her my phone number), asking me if I can come along to a photoshoot. Appranently, a friend of hers was doing some arts project.
I was feeling tired and lazy that morning, so I automatically said “no”. I put down the phone, and then realized what I had just done. I spent about 10 minutes struggling with myself, torn between facing that I said “no”, and calling her back, looking stupid, and telling her I actually DO have time to do the photoshoot.
In the end, saying “Yes!” won, so I called her back. The photoshoot turned out to be a quick half-hour, and great fun! And I talked to one of the photographers, and he agreed to meet up sometime and do a free photoshoot of me for my blog’s new header image. (University life is awesome. There’s so many hobbyists willing to do great-quality work for free!)
So coming to a dance show resulted in getting in touch with a photographer for my blog’s header image. It’s like the scene from Yes Man where Jim Carrey finally makes use of his guitar lessons. Completely, utterly unrelated and unexpected. 2 Cuils.
(Maybe Cuil was ahead of its time, and actually models reality more accurately than any other search engine :p )
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Another thing happened that was completely insignificant, but quite fun!
I was walking on campus, and a girl tried to hand me some flyer. Per reflex, I just said no and kept walking. After 100 metres, I realized what just happened. I stopped dead in the middle of a frequented walk, and just stood there for about 2 minutes, torn between going back, asking for the flyer, and looking stupid… or breaking my covenant and saying “no”.
So I walked back, said “On second thought, give me one”, grabbed a flyer out of her hand, turned around and walked away. The flyer turned out to be useless to me (advertising some communist seminar in the summer. Unfortunately, I’ll be on holiday in a different country at the time), but walking back and asking for it was was tons of fun
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There was one other completely unexpected way my “Yes Man” experiment affected my life.
I’m on next year’s committee for the Enterprise Society, and I was invited to a posh dinner on Thursday with some university officials. At first I was hesitating about going, because Thursday evening was pretty much the only chance I had all week to get some exercise (volleyball training).
But I decided to say “Yes!” to the dinner, and instead get my exercise by jogging every morning.
I’ve only missed one morning since. Jogging turns out to be surprisingly pleasant! Yet I never would have tried it if I didn’t fill up my schedule by saying “Yes!” to the dinner.
I comend him because i’m not just going to try saying yes to everything just to “see what happens”.
I’m good. Well if you want to read more about this little experiment and what other people had to say about it, follow this link.
Would yall consider being a Yes Man?
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