Yes or No?

I recently saw several people post a link to this article from O magazine, called 20 Questions Every Woman Should Ask Herself. It sounded like exactly the kind of article that I would start reading and get bored of halfway through, because as someone who used to blog for a life coaching site, and who is friendly with other people who used to blog for that same life coaching site, and who has also seen a few more people become life coaches, and let me see how many more times I can say life coach in this sentence life coach life coach life coach, I feel like I've hit my saturation point for woman-oriented life advice.

Plus, as much as I think Oprah is a total badass, I'm not sure she can really give me advice. Oprah is a self-made billionaire. Until she can tell me how to find a job so I can stop waking up in cold sweats worrying about the impending end date of my current job (June 30th) and my looming descent into ANOTHER round of unemployment, I'm not interested.

But anyway, I clicked on the article and, as predicted, lost interest halfway through. But not before I arrived at question #8, which was: "Do I know how to say no?" This, of course, arrived after question #7: "Do I say yes enough?"

The yes/no continuum seems to be polarizing in the realm of women's life advice. The two sides look like this:

SAY YES TO LITERALLY EVERYTHING
Open your heart to new experiences! Don't be afraid! When an opportunity comes along, say yes! Discover your gorgeous truth through the power of "yes"! If you feel like saying no to something, say yes anyway! It will change you as a woman FOREVER!

SAY NO TO EVERYTHING, BE A HERMIT, HERMITS ARE COOL
Do you not want to do something? Say no! Do you want to maybe do something but you also maybe want to sit on your ass eating Ben & Jerry's and Netflixing the shit out of House of Cards? Say no! Don't let anyone force you out of those pajama pants, girlfriend!

I would like to meet a woman who isn't tired of reading stuff about saying yes or saying no. Whatever happened to maybe, the ugly stepsister of yes and no? Let's all be non-committal! I'm kidding. Don't be non-committal. That sucks.

For what it's worth, which may be nothing, I'm always on the side of saying yes. I love pajama pants not just as much as the next girl but even more so. But I also love actually living life. You know what's not living life? Netflix. Look, I'm not saying you should partake in every single activity that comes your way. I have a friend who constantly invites me to super trendy clubs, and while I love killing my feet in uncomfortable heels and paying $16 for drinks and being so close to other people that there isn't any room to dance WAIT HAHA I HATE THOSE THINGS. So I don't go. (I went once. It was okay, but I'm all set now for at least a year).

But if someone asks you to do something that legitimately could be fun, and you're all, "Weeeeeell I have laundry to do" or "Weeeeell Game of Thrones is on" or "Weeeeeell I have to wake up in 16 hours," then, amigo, you should just fucking go. I recently texted a friend to see if he wanted to join me for a last minute free concert of a band I knew he liked. He hemmed and hawed and said no. And then changed his mind at the actual last second. The concert was great, and as we walked towards the subway, he said, "I'm really glad I ended up coming to the show. I was really tired but I knew that I never regret saying yes to stuff like this."

Supremely long digression aside, in this Oprah article, the "yes" question had some BS verbiage that I didn't read. But the text after "Do I know how to say no?" had only the following quote from Martha Beck:

"Here is the crux of the matter, the distilled essence, the only thing you need to remember: When considering whether to say yes or no, you must choose the response that feels like freedom. Period."

If ever there was such a succinctly beautiful statement in all of life coaching literature, I've never heard it.

Choose the response that feels like freedom.

Amazing.