Say YES to life

2 min read

In the middle of our journey, there’s a moment when life asks us directly: “Will you leap?” This isn’t about grand gestures or big risks—it’s about quietly embracing possibility, opening up a new chapter of life. A deep “yes“ to whatever odd, exhilarating, or unplanned things may come our way.

Our twenties and thirties had their plentiful “no‘s“-no to the ordinary, no to settling, no to the relentless parade of anything that didn‘t sparkle with promise. But this new “yes“ that comes with age? It‘s seasoned with irony, wisdom, and, most deliciously, an appreciation for the ordinary. There‘s something of a late-blooming romance in choosing to say yes to things we may have otherwise sidestepped: early sunrises, unlikely friendships, and trips to places we once decided were too close to home. Because this is done not for anyone‘s applause but for our own delight and it carries a particular triumph with it.

I recall once overhearing a woman in a bookstore—a true artefact of another era—who was loading her arms up with books on calligraphy, French cooking, and birdwatching. I asked her as politely as possible, “Are you a calligrapher? ” She laughed, her eyes crinkling that way only decades of actual laughter can make them do, and said, “Oh, darling, I don‘t need a reason. I need a curiosity.“ There it was, straightforward and honest, yes to life whole-hearted.

No justification, no explication-only a thrilling decision to be aware of and feel a little bit more. Perhaps the most liberating thing accompanying the utterance of “yes“, as we mature and progress further is that it brushes away our anxiety about perfection.

When we were younger, everything had to be immaculate, shining, and unblemished: our work, our clothes, even the dinner party conversations. But that’s the beauty of saying “yes“ in later life: we can allow its inevitable messiness. Maybe the food is not right, maybe the journey is not as it should be, maybe we try and we fail, but oh, the trying!

The courage is not in the outcome but in the agreement to live wholeheartedly, without needing to know how it all turns out. And so we throw open the windows and say, “yes“ to the messiness, “yes“ to the friendships that form over shared vulnerabilities, and “yes“ to the strange, uncharted paths. And in so doing give up perfection for something much richer: presence, a life lived in splendidly full detail.