I think this post by best-selling author Seth Godin is thought-provoking enough to repost here. What’s happening when we say no? Are we really denying possibility and innovation? Are we being lazy? Did we talk ourselves out of something before even answering out loud? It’s certainly worth a mindful dig.
It’s easy to join.
There are a million reasons to say no, but few reasons to stand up and say yes.
No requires just one objection, one defensible reason to avoid change. No has many allies–anyone who fears the future or stands to benefit from the status quo. And no is easy to say, because you actually don’t even need a reason.
No is an easy way to grab power, because with yes comes responsibility, but no is the easy way to block action, to exert the privilege of your position to slow things down.
No comes from fear and greed and, most of all, a shortage of openness and attention. You don’t have to pay attention or do the math or role play the outcomes in order to join the coalition that would rather things stay as they are (because they’ve chosen not to do the hard work of imagining how they might be).
And yet the coalition of No keeps losing. We live in a world of yes, where possibility and innovation and the willingness to care often triumph over the masses that would rather it all just quieted down and went back to normal.
Yes is the new normal. And just in time.
