Just say "YES"?

Last night, for my television viewing pleasure, I decided to watch one of Jim Carrey’s latest, Yes Man. I expected utter OTT, slapstick silliness that is trademark for the bendy comedian, but I was looking for a good laugh and figured this would certainly do the trick. Never in a gajillion years would I have imagined taking a page from the “Jim Carrey Book of Life’s Little Lessons.”

To give you a little background on the flick, (Spoiler alert!) Jim Carrey’s character, Carl, is the poster child for reluctance and negativity. He ignores his friend’s calls to the point that they have to block their number just to get him to answer the phone. He makes ridiculous excuses for not wanting to go out with his friends, and just got divorced from a 6 month marriage – whoa, talk about a commitment! Carl is also a loan officer at a bank and he’s not exactly the employee of the month declining every loan application that is put in front of him. One afternoon he’s sitting outside of the bank having lunch when an overly zealous blast-from-the-past walks up and tells Carl how great his life has been since attending this seminar (which coincidentally is in town) and encourages Carl to attend. Naturally, Carl declines the offer, but out of sheer curiosity, he grudgingly shows up.

Surprisingly, the seminar preaches about the life-changing power of saying “yes” – to everything. After the seminar, Carl is a little spunkier than usual, but is not convinced that those three little letters could be so life changing. While walking back to his car, a homeless man asks Carl for a ride. Out of sheer habit, Carl declines the request, but his friend gives him a little nudge, and before you know it, Carl is playing chauffeur. The homeless guy then asks to use Carl’s cell phone…sure, why not! The beggar chats on the phone the entire ride, and completely drains the phone’s battery. Then, unexpectedly, once they reach their destination the beggar asks Carl if he could spare a few bucks. Carl pulls out a nice roll of cash and counts out $6 or $7. The beggar comments about how much cash Carl has in his wallet and half-jokingly asks if he can have all of it. Carl reluctantly obliges. The now “wealthy” homeless man dives into the bushes and a disgusted Carl attempts to make his journey back home.

Carl only makes it a few yards down the road when his car peters out – he’s out of gas. He tries to call someone, but his phone is dead, and he’s out of cash too. He walks to the nearest gas station cursing the seminar’s ridiculous methodology the whole way. While at the gas station, a cute lady pulls up on a shiny little Vespa and strikes a conversation with good ol’ Carl. She offers him a ride back to his car, snaps a photo of them (a memento, if you will), kisses him, and they part ways. So now, Carl’s a believer. What seemed like a rotten evening actually turned out to be a lot of fun. If he hadn’t have said yes, he never would have met…the woman of his dreams? So, for the next few weeks he goes balls out, saying yes to everything. He takes flying lessons, he learns Korean, he accepts an invitation to a HP costume party from his strange little boss, he gets some granny lovin’, he approves every loan, he accepts a flyer from a street vendor he’s rejected a hundred times before to see a local band perform at a bar – unbeknownst to him, it’s his dream girl’s band!

“Reunited, and it feels so good, reunited, 'cause we understood…”

Fast forward about an hour and a half and several montages later and Carl has been transformed into a new man. He got an awesome promotion and loves his job, he’s sociable with his friends, he now has a great girlfriend…AND THE REST IS HISTORY.

Wow! I certainly didn’t plan on this verbal diarrhea becoming a movie review of sorts, but I guess what I was trying to get at was 1) this was actually a descent movie, especially for Jim Carrey, but most importantly 2) this movie actually made an impression and had me analyzing how many times I have said no in any given day or week, and how, even over the tiniest of things, my life may have been different had I said yes. Now, I won’t commit to go balls out like Carl – I’m way too chicken, plus, that’s all Hollywood nonsense anyway - but after seeing Yes Man I will definitely pause and think before I say no. It could change my life!

I challenge any of you reading this to say yes to something that you would have ordinarily declined. What could it hurt? If you accept this challenge, please let me know what you said yes to, and what the outcome was.

TTFN!

~ M ~