Karen likes her boyfriend Robert.
She wants him for the long-term.
But she also likes Tim and Sonny and Max because they are fun – more fun than Robert. So she goes with them as well.
Robert doesn’t know, she’s having to lie, and it can’t go on, but it can for now and she closes her ears when her friend says “Every ‘Yes’ is a ‘No’, Karen”.
Karen just wants the ‘yes’. She doesn’t want a ‘no’. Why should she limit herself?
‘No’ is sometimes perceived as a negative event. The word has a bad press; it is not what we want to hear.
But ‘No’ is crucial for health and at the heart of all delight and discovery.
Columbus said ‘No’ to the Spanish town of Palos de la Frontera on August 3rd 1492 to chance upon America.
Every ‘yes’ is born of a ‘no’; the ‘no’ is the start to everything.
A ‘no’ to scrolling is a ‘yes’ to focus.
A ‘no’ to abandonment is a ‘yes’ to safety.
A ‘no’ to separation is a ‘yes’ to union.
A ‘no’ to victimhood is a ‘yes’ to energy.
A ‘no’ to another’s control is a ‘yes’ to your own strength and integrity.
A ‘no’ to the many is a ‘yes’ to the one.
A ‘no’ to paralysis of mind is a ‘yes’ to the will, to action.
A ‘no’ to being a doormat is a ‘yes’ to my existence.
A ‘no’ to drift is a ‘yes’ to intention.
A ‘no’ to isolating self-absorption is a ‘yes’ to joyful union with reality.
‘A ‘no’ to the cover-up is a ‘yes’ to the truth.
A ‘no’ to catastrophising is a ‘yes’ to delight.
Without my ‘no’, my ‘yes’ is a pale and powerless thing.
‘No’ is the springboard from which ‘yes’ leaps high into the air.
Every ‘yes’ is born of a ‘no’.
As, at the beginning of time, when the universe said a perilous ‘No’ to nothing…
and an adventurous ‘yes’ to something.
