Think About Your Yes and No

All right, so here we are. I saw this quote a few weeks ago, and I read it and it got me thinking. I spent a little bit more time thinking about it, and it’s brought back some thoughts, some feelings, some memories, and different things. So I thought I would read it to you and maybe we could chat about it for just a minute or two.

Here it is:
“The oldest shortest words yes and no are those which require the most thought.”

As I thought about it—it says these words require the most thought—I realized how true it is. Imagine saying yes or saying no to something. We all have. We’ve all said yes to things, and we’ve all said no to things.

Sometimes, we didn’t think about it. I’ve known people who have said yes to something and regretted it. I’ve also known people who have said no to things and regretted that too. And I’ve met people who said yes to things, and it ended up being one of the catalysts in their lives that brought the most value and joy to them.

I’ve also met people who said no to some things and avoided major turmoil in their lives. I’m not here to bring up all those yeses and nos in everybody’s life and give too many examples, because I don’t want to burden you. But think about your yeses and your nos.

Have you ever met somebody who says yes all the time to everything? They burden themselves, their schedule, their time, and burn themselves out, because they can’t say no. I’ve known people like that.

Have you also met people who never seem to say yes to anything? They’re just negative and don’t want to ever say yes. And even if they do, they wish they’d said no. I’ve met people like that too.

As you’re going through life, you should put value on the words yes and no. You should put understanding behind what you’re getting into—what you’re saying yes to, what you’re saying no to—and recognize that who you are helps you grow or shrink based on the weight you put behind, and many times the thought you put behind, your yeses and your nos.

They are very short words. No happens to be probably one of the first words most of us ever spoke. And most of us have ever heard, because our parents probably said no. “No, don’t touch that hot stove.” “No, don’t.” No, right? I know I did it a lot with my boys, and they said no. They repeated and parroted back.

Now, as they’re getting older, I hear them say no to me. And of course, then I have to take them out and dump them in the trash and shake them up a little bit. No, I’m kidding. I don’t do any of that.

But put some thought behind your yeses and your nos. Maybe there are some times you shouldn’t be saying no. Maybe there are some times you shouldn’t be saying yes. Maybe there are some times you should be saying yes instead of no. And maybe there are times you should be saying no instead of yes.

But you should put some thought into it before you do it. Before you just say yes, before you just say no—think about that.

The Bible is kind of clear. It says, “Let your yeses be yes and your nos be no.” Like, wow. There’s some truth in that too. It goes without saying.

So, put some value behind the time you put into deciding to do things. Say yes to it or no to it—whatever it is. It might be the best thing that you’ve ever done.

I know there were times in my life—using finance as an example—that I said no to some things that helped prepare me to save, to put myself in a place where I’m in a more financially secure place in my life today because I was able to say no to some things.

So, as you go through the rest of this week, think about your yeses and think about your nos. You might just see huge value because you’re putting some time and thought into those very small words.

All right, God bless you guys. You have a wonderful week. I’ll talk to you later.