What about you, they said, would you jump out of a plane.  Uh, no.  Skiing?  You mean where you look out over the top of a mountain and then throw yourself over on the equivalent of two sticks?  Uh, no.  Sounds like I’m starting from no but, in fact, quite a bit of thought has gone into these decisions.

Really I start from yes most of the time and I’d really like to see more people do that.  When posed the statement:  I want to live in a world _____.  I said I want to live in a world where people start from yes.  I get that that isn’t going to happen all the time but this week it didn’t happen at all.

I’m backing out of a parking space on Stowe Lane last week and my overly cautious, not want to scrape up my tires and rims, watch the mirrors, and the camera way of doing that pissed off one of my neighbors.  I didn’t cut her off but she did have to wait and she was in my face about that.  Really?  You’ve heard me mention the Mayor of the Pool and her hard ass, gravelly voice, don’t come to my end of the pool, incensed because she has to go outside the fence to smoke personality.  Well there she was giving me the face and the head shake as I’m apologizing.  Wait.  I’m apologizing.  She didn’t stop, she didn’t care so you can imagine me going all triple dog dare and calling her bitch.  I’m not proud of it but it needed to be done.

Why was that necessary in a darling little neighborhood like ours?  Why is it ever necessary to always start from no without a second’s hesitation?

Enter the Starbucks one morning and it’s jammin…no surprise it’s 8:30am.  Waiting in line, smiling and chatting with the people.  Place my order, venti skim no foam one Splenda latte please.  Your name she says. Sandi.  What?  It’s not an uncommon name but for an Ashley or a Jessica or a Kiley…who knows, maybe?  I repeat it and ask her to check if my free drink is in the computer.  Well we’ve been having problems checking against the cards (I see, the app would indeed be better) and the Starbucks computer hasn’t been responding and….oh…it went through.   I didn’t actually say it this time but she was indeed…

Continue through last week in anticipation of what I call the periodic justify your existence meeting this week.  Provide the information the project leaders were looking for only to find out it was being used at a conference call I only off handedly heard about.  You know I’m all for the next generation coming up and making a difference and I really worry about being labeled the old woman when I try and hint that they may not be entirely on track in their thinking.  Well this dinosaur knows like she knows that some people are plunging head first into fixing an anomaly by changing policy and they don’t know what they don’t know.  Point is they are starting from no.  After struggling with a spreadsheet that would provide the much needed reality check over the weekend I closed it and I’ll be damned if I know where it went.  Note to self….trying to justify your existence over the weekend with an I’ll show those spiky haired, skinny jeans kids sucking up to the guy on the ledge with one foot on a banana peel attitude might not have been the right motivation.  Sometimes the universe provides a motivation check on my behalf; thank God I printed the file.

Why is it necessary in a world renowned company to power grab instead of practice the art of consensus?

I was going to plunge right back in this morning on gathering the reality check material but I decided to start from yes instead.  Not my idea exactly, more like Evi and I sharing a glass of wine over our previous night’s texting where she reminded me to take today off, it will wait.  And our ever present mantra, it’s just cars.   So I did, today I started from yes.  Took a walk with two sets of dogs, took myself around my dear Stowe Lane, camera in hand to capture what is surely the last of the turning leaves.  Rearranged my office to be MY office, not my other work office.  Spruced up my home, took out something fabulous for dinner with my friend Sandra and let it go.

So many signs handed to me this week to start again.  When I started this post with:

Legacy Lesson: Start from Yes

And then: Ordinary Wisdom from Tina Fey

And finally: Ordinary Food for Thought

I never thought it would turn into a rant about NO.  The fact is I should have heeded the hints, actually more like the bricks, thrown at me and stayed on course with my original thoughts on saying yes to more and more invitations, more and more tiny community adventures and more and more positive interaction.  Thankfully I’m doing that but as with anything else you can never really see the power of one thing unless you’ve experience it’s direct opposite.  I believed before in the power of yes I certainly have confirmed that this week.