Go on, ask me.

I've decided to start saying yes. Not okay (sigh) or sure (whatever) or maybe (not) but a resounding YES. If you need one more person on your football team or a square dance partner (okay, I need a square dance partner) or a writing tutor (for fee or barter) or a batch of brownies for your bake sale, yes, I will do it. As long as it doesn't compromise my well-being, my values, or my bank account, I'm in. In fact, I'm totally stoked.

As I've gotten older, like many people, I've started getting set in my ways. By nature, I love to try new things and go new places. When I was younger (um, not that long ago), I was always up for anything. But for some reason, I've started thinking up excuses for why I just can't.

No wonder I feel so much discontent with my life.

I've been reflecting on this passage from the Sacred Path:

You can see people's connection to internal drala by the way they behave: the way they pick up their teacups, they way they smoke their cigarettes, or the way they run their fingers through their hair. Whatever you do always manifests how you feel about yourself and your environment—whether you feel kindness towards yourself or resentment and anger towards yourself; whether you feel good about your environment or whether you feel bad about your environment. That can always be detected by your gait and your gestures—always.

It reminds me of a sentence in Geneen Roth's Women, Food, and God about the disconnect we often experience between who we believe ourselves to be and who we actually are. For me, that disconnect hits home in terms of my aspirations. I love my job and my community in Brooklyn, but I don't aspire to sit behind a desk or live in a crowded city my whole life. There are too many new experiences to be had and dormant (or as-yet-untapped) passions to explore. I want to do it all! Yet, I just can't bring myself to jump.

Instead, I stick to my routine: workout, work, capoeira, Internet, sleep . . . with a little (sometimes a lot of) eating in between. And then I complain about how I want to DO SOMETHING WITH MY LIFE!

I've become a crotchedy old lady, and I'm barely 29.

So what can I do right now to reverse the aging process?

I'm quitting refusals cold turkey. And I'm not going to straddle the fence anymore.

SIGN ME UP.