May 11, 2025
Have you ever said “yes” to so many people and agreed to so many things, that you feel like that dead guy in the film, Weekend at Bernie’s? Just bouncing around, being dragged to one grill-out or committee meeting or work-related function after another, while constantly collapsing in the sand and thumping into walls. In this hysterical continuum, somebody always props us back up and we’re off to the next happening, wearing a perpetually languid smirk.
Being an amicable person certainly carries a lot of benefits, especially if you’re not a corpse: it helps us to foster positive relationships, it can create opportunities for us, as well as others, and it can often provide us with a greater sense of meaning, which makes us feel good; that is, when we want to be involved.
When the requests for engagement start to feel compulsory, many of us still have a difficult time saying “no”, even if we’ve grown exhausted or uncomfortable from obliging, on autopilot, for so long. Like other people pleasing behaviors, the inability to reject entreaties or even demands could stem from any number of more deeply embedded causes.
A fear of conflict and disappointing others is certainly right there at the top of the list, but all of these not-so-secret reasons typically funnel into two very basic, but sometimes catastrophic problems:
1) We have become so increasingly attached to our Smartphones over the past 15 years, that we remain in a state of constant availability; and,
2) We’ve already established a well-worn pattern of agreeing to things too easily, to the point where it’s nearly impossible for us to change future course once the tracks have already been laid.
They need somebody to handle the Simmons account at work, your buddy needs a wingman at the club Friday, and there are back-to-back-to-back birthday parties on the calendar for that Saturday. We may complain or dread or think of imaginary excuses to avoid even just one of these events, but there we always seem to be, bouncing into the weekend like a deranged, hapless marionette wearing that smirk and a mustache. “Hey everybody, Bernie’s here!”.
Attending functions constantly and overworking simply because you’ve been asked to do so may not seem like a problem for those who thrive on this sort of behavior, presumably in the same way as living Bernie; but for many of us, we’re just along for the ride; like postmortem Bernie.
Who Let ‘No’ In?
When we say ‘yes’ is it because we want someone to continue to like us? Does saying ‘yes’ alleviate our fear of their reaction should we fail to acquiesce? Or is it simply the result of us neglecting to acknowledge that we have a choice, as our identity is slowly shaped by the overbearing personalities of those around us? Yes.
These things we can somewhat easily understand, afterall no matter how uncomfortable it may be to admit it, we’ve all experienced peer pressure. It is the reluctance to utter the words “no, thank you”, however, which strikes me as more curious. ‘No’ seems more forbidden, like a darker road less traveled and only by naysayers or curmudgeons. These are traditionally outcasts, nerds, and weirdos who all want to be left alone, in the eyes of the willing.
My buddies will give me hell, co-workers will talk about me, my family will roll their eyes (as if to say these things never occur after we do show up). It’s challenging when we want to be accepted, but we also want space at the same time. A lot of circles don’t operate that way, especially with an ever-advancing “either you’re in or you’re out” collective mentality.
The social trajectory on which we are embarking, this compartmentalization, is not new to humanity, but in the modern era, information is everywhere, leaving us much more susceptible to manipulation and quicker than preceding generations. As we mentioned in problem #1, we are now always available to receive; that is, after we have been already been conditioned by problem #2 to comply. That’s the bad news.
The good news is, we have all the news! Therefore, who we are saying “no” to as a whole, if we’re paying attention to reliable sources, is on full display: immigrants, minorities, women, children, underprivileged, those in need of treatment or protection or relief; what this exposure can do, if we allow it to, is enact a sense of intention in our everyday behavior.
The reality is that instead of learning from this information, it more often just makes us more stressed and tense. We don’t need the news to tell us what’s important, we need human connection and it’s right in front of us. If we should be so bold as to confront the purpose of our “yes’s” and “no’s”, we can start to live a life a lot less like Bernies.
Si Por Favor
One little trick that I’ve been trying out is to assign the word “please” to follow that yes and see if it still lines up. For example, if you’re occupying a community space, like a cafe or juice bar, and it feels impossibly stuffy in there, an employee might ask: “Hey, do you mind if I crack that window behind you?” You may respond enthusiastically, “Oh, yes please, go right ahead!”
That one is a slam dunk, along with, “would you like an espresso?” More of a “hell yes”, but let’s think about those requests to which it’s a bit more difficult to respond so enthusiastically, when they feel more obligatory and less pleasant.
Household chores, helping a close friend move, or even waiting in a dreadful line for a loved one are not things we typically jump out of our chairs to engage in. But adding the “please”, even just a little in our heads, brings purpose to our “yes’s” and involves a certain level of altruism that, over time, can begin to shape our understanding of the larger purpose we may fulfill.
I’ve tried it in conversations with myself too, asking if I want to go ahead and write this ugly email to somebody who I felt has wronged me. In applying the yes please test to this self-imposed examination, it feels shallow, juvenile, and almost malevolent to type the words and send. This also strengthens the potency and authenticity of our “no’s”.
Do I want to go for a run? Most of us are conditioned to spike with a fraction of a sense of dread when this question comes up in the old noggin. But when we apply the yes please we can sort of convince ourselves that this will be a real treat; and it is, once we get moving. “Let’s go, boy!”
In a world that contains so much for us to be a part of, perhaps we can begin to understand the value of taking a step back to view our decisions with a broader lens. WIth practice and hope, we may then begin to not only determine what is significant, but that it’s simply good to be alive.