Say “Yes” First – Think About it Later

A quiet, eager man known as Professor Bowman once told me — a fidgety sophomore petrified by my fear of failure or humiliation – that I should always “Say ‘yes’ first, and think about it later”. He said this was the way to face new opportunities about which I was unsure or potentially underqualified to pursue.

Though still a little fidgety and fairly uncomfortable with failure or humiliation, Professor Bowman’s advice helped me in various ways, and is something I now unhesitatingly tell my students and friends when they are unsure about the latest opportunity squirming in their lap.

Despite the professor himself since admitting that he was a little bit “young and naïve” at the time he gave me such advice, I found that implementing his somewhat brash recommendation has served me very well over the years (and, admittedly, sometimes not so well). What he instilled in me was the mindset that all opportunities should be given consideration, and that often the pluckiest answer – yes! – is the one that should be given immediately, before insecurities or fears are able to squash one’s resolve.

Recently, the New York Times ran an article by Sendhil Mullainathan titled “Why Trying New Things is So Hard to Do,” in which Mullainathan maintains that the process of experimentation can produce unimaginably positive and creative results. According to the article “47 percent of human behaviors are…habitual,” meaning that almost half of what we do in our lives is us on autopilot.

This statistic reminded me of why Professor Bowman’s advice, which – admittedly – can sound careless and immoderate when one first hears it, is so valuable. If almost fifty percent of our behavior is dictated by our habits, saying “yes” to new opportunities without prolonged consideration might be the only way to shake up our trajectory of personal development. After all, as Mullainathan admits, “Trying something new can be painful…any benefits – even if they are large – will be enjoyed in a future that feels abstract and distant,” a truth most of us hold too dearly. The present self wants to avoid discomfort, embarrassment, failure, or even just newness, and the future self remains somewhat of an easily-dismissed abstraction. It is our job to pull that abstraction from the future and into the tangible, dizzying present for stimulus.

Now, that is not to say that habits or rituals are unhealthy, or that every question should be answered with an overeager “yes!” Quite the contrary, I encourage students and friends alike to cultivate and incorporate rituals that are calming, reflective, fun, or that encourage their interpersonal and professional relationships; personally, I try to exert caution in momentous decisions regarding partnership or job changes. However, being creatures of intense habit is one of the surest ways to create a personal environment of stagnation, not only because we are not stretching our own creativity, but also because we are not experiencing enough failure. And that is key – by saying “yes” to more, we are also ensuring that we might fail more, might find more things we dislike, and might be forced to endure an activity we initially thought was a good idea, and ultimately find to be a flop.

But…how else do we learn?

When saying “yes” first, and thinking later, we are inviting both greater successes and wilder failures than when we rely on the comfort of habit and familiarity, and it is this coupling of creative endeavor and unavoidable failure that pushes our blobby little lives into something substantial and well-formed.

Mullainathan’s text ultimately concludes that “experimentation is an act of humility, an acknowledgement that there is simply no way of knowing without trying something different.” Though this may be nothing new, it becomes far too easy to resort to the same activities, the same conferences, the same conversations for relaxation, recreation, or padding that CV. However, cultivating the derring-do it takes to say “yes” sometimes, without allowing yourself the often self-defeating luxury of time to invent the “no” excuses, might just bring us not only more humility-inducing discomfort, but more vibrant and surprising successes as well.

Author: Hannah Hanover

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