Say Yes to Less!

Or: My year of saying No

We’re watching the new season of Fargo. Jennifer Jason Leigh plays a generally vile, wealthy CEO of a debt collection agency. But she’s also kind of sympathetic because she doesn’t suffer insufferable men, of which there are many in this show. She has a giant painting behind her desk that caught my eye. Some of you who’ve been watching probably know what I’m talking about.

It reads “No.”

A painting by artist Mandy Stobo, appearing in Season 5 of Fargo.

I find it inspiring! Gleeful! Powerful! I’ll get to why in a minute…

I didn’t mean to take such a long break from writing. I had plans for some kind of end of the year post. But then a kid got sick, holidays came fast and furious, there was more sickness (‘tis the season), and then I decided I’ll just get to it when I get to it. 

So here we are in the new year. I just turned 41. Ho-hum. I expect it’s going to be a dark year, with genocides raging around the world, America happy to foot the bill for mass slaughter and hand over deadly toys to psychopaths throwing tantrums. And of course, we’ll find out if our “bastion of freedom and democracy” - heavy on the air quotes and eye rolling - will finally tip into full on authoritarianism this year. Oh, and it’ll be hot. Really hot. 

I’m always asking myself what it looks like to build a decent life in a world that seems to lack decency in such profoundly destructive ways. That’s the whole point of The Suburban Wilderness, I suppose. 

I don’t tend to make New Year’s resolutions, but I’ve been thinking about what to release, what I don’t want to take with me into this year, as I continue building a decent life in a dark world. Self-doubt is one thing, but that’s a whole, big topic for another post.

This post is focused on another big goal: doing less. 

I have the nasty habit of saying yes to things. Too many things. Someone wants me to volunteer for something, or somebody wants to get some project started and asks me to help, or there are a million causes that need boots on the ground, and I feel like I should be a pair of boots because I’m profoundly privileged, so what right do I have not to help? I started and stopped a couple different community-related projects last year that sucked up a lot of time and energy. They resulted in some good things, but mostly, I was saying yes to things and trying to convince myself I wanted to commit to lots of work that, if I was being honest with myself, I didn’t really want to commit to. 

There are many different ways to do good things in the world. As far as social causes go, I have a particular ideal of a person whose voice is loud and bold, who’s a leader, who’s out in the streets and in the community in really visible ways, organizing and agitating. I wish that was me. But I don’t think that’s me.

After trying and trying things over the years, I probably need to accept that my activism, my vocation, my calling - whatever corny word - might just be writing. The more I say yes to other things, the more I try to fit myself into some idealized version of “impact,” the less time and energy and focus I give myself for the thing I’ve only ever really wanted to do. Which is just thinking and writing about stuff.

Free time has also become much more precious. I know my fellow working parents feel me on this one. There might be no more important way to take care of myself than to build in time - and plenty of it - where I’m doing nothing in particular. Maybe I’m knitting and listening to a podcast, maybe I’m putzing in my garden, maybe I’m reading a book for fun. Maybe I’m just staring out the window (a favorite pastime when I was a kid).

My daughter reading by the “fire” - which she turned on to set the mood - is goals.

The elements of the life I want to build involve doing less of what people ask of me or expect of me - or that I expect of myself based on outside pressures and opinions. Less of what I don’t really want to do.

Just… less.

So, this is going to be the year of saying No. If someone would like to make me my very own piece of “No” artwork, I’ll take it!

Someone in my Instagram feed recently shared this quote from Bill Watterson’s 1990 commencement speech at Kenyon, which I love: 

“Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential - as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them.

To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble.”

(As an aside - what’s very funny is, in looking for the text of this quote online, I found lots of tech bros and entrepreneurial types quoting the last line in the excerpt above, probably oblivious to the context or knowing very little about Bill Watterson, who staunchly refused to merchandise Calvin and Hobbes, thus forgoing the growth potential and enormous sums of money so hallowed by the entrepreneurial set. Long live Bill Watterson!) 

I continue to fight the ridiculous urge to equate success or impact or value with being extraordinary or exceptional. What I’m interested in this year is ordinary stuff. Just quiet, mundane things. Little amusements with no particular purpose.

You know who’s really good at just chilling and living their lives and not overcommitting? Plants.

When it comes to my work, all I’m going for is writing more consistently, finding my voice, figuring out what I’m doing on this platform and exploring how to be of service through my writing (and figuring out if I need to leave this platform because… Nazis… ugh, they ruin everything. And shame on tech companies for profiting from them).

I’m looking forward to saying no this year. I’m looking forward to focusing on the things I want to do, not taking on work that’s not mine to take on, not doing things just because people ask me to. I’m tasking myself with enjoying simple pleasures, taking my creativity seriously (for once in my damn life), and taking my joy seriously, too. 

This Instagram post from artist and writer Yumi Sakugawa also captures my sentiments for the year: 

From Yumi Skaugawa’s Instagram. Thanks for the good advice, Yumi.

So, happy New Year. Say No. Do less.

And as always, ceasefire now. End the occupation. End the apartheid. End the genocide. Free Palestine.

Free ourselves.