I have enjoyed life a lot more by saying “yes” than by sayings “no”. -Richard Branson

How often do we say "no" throughout the course of a day? Do we ever unconsciously just say no when someone offers us something, simply out of habit? It would appear the kid in this photo, when offered a slice of watermelon, said yes with every fiber in his body. I wonder what would happen if I never said no? Would the opposite have more dire consequences? If I never said yes, would I fail to even get out of bed in the morning?

Perhaps these are meaningless exercises completely unworthy of discussion, but I wonder how often my own parents said no vs. yes to me as a child. Of course there are some obvious situations (no, you can't put your finger in the electrical socket, no you can't stay up all night eating cookies), but did the nos heavily outweigh the yeses? And by what margin: 2 to l, 5 to 1, 10 to 1... and what was the effect upon my development?

Consider this study done by the National Literacy Trust in the United Kingdom:

"Sir Ken Robinson, chair of the UK Government's report on creativity, education and the economy, described research that showed that young people lost their ability to think in "divergent or non-linear ways", a key component of creativity. Of 1,600 children aged three to five who were tested, 98% showed they could think in divergent ways. By the time they were aged eight to ten, 32% could think divergently. When the same test was applied to 13 to 15-year-olds, only 10% could think in this way. And when the test was used with 200,000 25-year-olds, only 2% could think divergently. . . . Education is driven by the idea of one answer and this idea of divergent thinking becomes stifled.' He described creativity as the 'genetic code' of education and said it was essential for the new economic circumstances of the 21st century." (25 March 2005, http://www.literacytrust.org.uk/Database/thinking.html#wither)

"Don't color outside the lines," we're told at an early age. But why? And who made the lines anyway?

"Art enables us to find ourselves and lose ourselves at the same time". -Thomas Merton

As Steve Chandler has stated, "get up on the right side of the head." As super serious agenda driven adults, we rise in the morning with the day's to-do list plastered into our mind's eye. This often leads to a dreadful outlook to the blessing of another day. When and why did we establish this type of conditioning? Can you really give yourself one good reason why you don't deserve to be in complete and total ecstasy upon waking every morning? 

Tell yourself you can't and you won't. It's really that simple. The body follows the mind around all day. If negative thoughts can create ulcers in the stomach and make hair fall out of the head, what can positive thoughts do for the body?

Go visit a western psychologist and tell them you want to rise above stress, frustration, anxiety, disappointment, anger, fear and depression, and they will look at you as if you had three heads. The shrink will give you an action plan for "coping" with these things, but in the west we consider all of these feelings and emotions as normal. But again I ask: who made the lines anyway?

"What you are is what you have been. What you'll be is what you do now." -Buddha

If we make the assumption that we can change, can we admit we might just be a little too loyal to our suffering? Or we might be a tad lazy. I can't stand my lousy life, until someone threatens to change me and then I defend my lousy life to no end. What the hell am I so afraid of? 

I hope for today we all ignore the so-called professionals who tell us we're all just 50% nature and 50% nurture and to cope with that fact. All the great minds in history questioned something regarding the status quo. Become a pioneer, a scientist, or an explorer when it comes to the habitual functioning of your own mind. It might just be your final frontier.

Live long and prosper,
Carl