The word “yes” came to my mind this morning and with it, memories of the movie “Yes, Man.” I was reminded of a post I wrote about it two years ago. Here is part of that 2024 missive:

Recently breaking from the modern scrolling dilemma, we went old-school scrolling, and physically sifted through the DVD archives to find a movie to watch. It seems we’ve had the same scrolling issue for years, it’s just become more efficient with technology. We finally found success in our agreement to watch 2008’s Yes Man starring Jim Carrey and Zooey Deschanel. Stuck in a rut after a divorce, Carl (Carrey) finds himself at a motivational seminar in which inspirational guru, Terence, (played delightfully by Terence Stamp) challenges him to “enter a covenant” with the universe and say “yes” to anything asked of him. Of course, clever and cringeworthy hilarity ensue as Carl goes all-in on this strategy.

The moral of the story ultimately arrives as Carl discovers that saying “yes” to everything is not a great strategy but that “yes” is a powerful way of opening oneself to the possibilities of life.

Considering Carl’s pre and post-yes self, a curious revelation appears. One might think of his “yes” as a counterpoint to saying “no” to the possibilities of life but that’s actually not the case. Carl’s problem wasn’t that he said “no” to life. His big failing was not choosing. In his avoidance, indifference, half-heartedness, and bland lack of effort, he found himself mired in the middle of nothing in particular. His “yes” was an answer to the sloth that had seized his soul.

Yes, became a decisive antidote to the “I don’t wanna” that had thrown his life into a depressing journey to the bottom. He eventually discovers that even his “no” has power in this context because it is a choice, a commitment to a direction. In between yes and no, we find ourselves tossed about on the seas of life, blown to wherever the wind will take us. A resounding yes, or no, is a cure to half-heartedness and indirection.

The call in that post was to reject the malaise of sloth in being open to the many possibilities that life throws at us. I suggested that we often miss these invitations:

Every day, invitations come our way. Invitations to go, to be, to do, to think. Many of them, we don’t even see. Most of them, we don’t respond to. Regarding the scrolling phenomena, consider for a moment how many invitations appear in just five minutes of swiping up and down on our phones. The vast majority aren’t worth responding to. But when we do, something happens. Now, we’re in motion. Our mind and energy move in a direction.

I went on to suggest that “yes” is about creating momentum. Though I’m not sure I really like the scrolling example above, I understand where I was trying to take it. Saying “yes” is about getting ourself in motion, moving toward something as willful action.

Saying “yes,” or “no,” to the invitation of the moment is definitive. It is a choice, and perhaps a more profound direction with the examples above would be to discuss the half-heartedness of scrolling itself. The mindless activity of looking at endless content with no particular destination or purpose in mind. Breaking it with a purposeful “yes” or “no” is some form of antidote to the massive waste of time scrolling can become.

But I’m thinking of a different “yes” today. What do we do with the many invitations to things that we’d prefer not to do? More specifically, the “offer we can’t refuse” that comes in the form of struggle, suffering, disappointment, or change. What role does “yes” have when those things come along?

The deeper reality of our lives is that we encounter far more unavoidable struggles than invitations to great possibility. Or do we? Of course, all of us would prefer chances to say “yes” to grand adventure, great advancement, and wildly positive change. Nobody wants trials, difficulty, or suffering. Yet, they come nonetheless.

How would the “yes” guru Terence coach Carl in saying “yes” to the struggles? What would it look like to say “yes” to suffering? Would he propose it as joyful masochism? As in, “thank you, sir, may I have another”? Maybe he would suggest a stoic “yes”- grim-faced and gritting one’s way through it. Perhaps it would be a tense, grimacing “yes” that fearfully braces for impact. I’m really not sure that Hollywood could muster anything other than something darkly comedic.

There is a different kind of “yes” and it is custom-designed for the unavoidable struggles, trials, and changes of our lives. It’s called “assent.” Most of us don’t go looking for difficulties but they find us and nobody welcomes them with open arms. However, when we assent, we see the difficulties for what they are: reality. Then we accept them and walk forward with hope and trust. To assent is to accept the reality, face it with courage, and seek the opportunity in it. Opportunity within it?

So often, we get hung up on the way we want things to be. Our happiness. Our joy. Our consolation. Our pleasure and satisfaction and ideal circumstance. Reality often has something else in mind, and strangely, the harder we grasp the way we want things to be, the more painful reality tends to be. There seems to be some law of physics with regard to suffering that makes it more painful the more we resist it.

What might happen if we say “yes” to irritation or burden or inconvenience or loss? Not the “yes” of “thank you sir, my I have another,” but the assent to the reality and what it might reveal. How might it go differently if we can let go of the way we want it to be and look for some other truth in our reality?

To assent is to surrender but not in the form of giving up. To assent is to submit to the reality of the situation but not in an inactive, passive fashion. Real assent is to see the reality, the truth, of our circumstance and take the next step trusting that something greater will be revealed. It is taking the hit and walking without crumpling because you believe there is something is beyond it. It is accepting the invitation to a reality that you may not have wanted, knowing that somehow, someway, you will come to more through it.

There is great freedom in assent. Yes, it can come at a tremendous price. Often, it is a freedom which we really didn’t want. It is the freedom of acceptance. An active surrender that allows us to be caught up in the reality of a movement greater than us knowing we will land on the other side…somewhere further along than where we started. Somehow more than what we were when we began. This kind of “yes” brings us the liberation of realizing that our life is not about us and frees us to pour ourself out like a libation to something more than ourselves.

I don’t think Hollywood would find any comedy there, but I find it beautifully poetic.