Tag Archives: Morocco

Living above my means

09 Sunday Apr 2017

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I live above my means. Way above.

I eat and throw away more food than I need each day. I spend more money than I need to each day. I think of myself more than I need to each day. I worry about my future (and other things) more than I want to each day.  It’s all too much.

Friends in Morocco tell me that as long as they have enough to get by each day, that’s all they need.  These friends also take care of others, helping and giving as they can. And that ends up being a lot and often. It inspires me.

I spin and toil each day worrying about what to do next, how to live my dream, how to make more money, how to work harder to accomplish the goals set for me by others. It drains me.

I already have more than the majority of the rest of the world. How much more do I really need?

I want to live below my means. I want to live a life with less, with fewer, with smaller. A life focusing on today, on others, and a life of enough.

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The little old man of Bab Doukkala

05 Sunday Mar 2017

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Bab Doukkala is my neighborhood in Marrakech, Morocco. It’s where my guesthouse / riad, Dar Basyma, is located. A gritty place with few to no tourists, it’s an authentic neighborhood with authentic people living authentic lives. Natural. Unassuming. Vibrant.

Soon after opening Dar Basyma, we met a gentle man we called L’Abadee, which means ‘old man’ in one of the African languages, or at least that’s what we surmised. Nonetheless, this man was dubbed that by us, even though he was probably only in his 50’s or 60’s. He owned a cardboard-lined, wire cart which he used to haul things for hire. Taking an immediate liking to him, he became our “luggage man,” toting luggage for the guests at Dar Basyma, which he did happily and with a toothless smile!

Over the next year and a half, we became as close as we could, considering we don’t speak the same language. He was the first person who greeted me when I arrived to the neighborhood and the last to bid me farewell. I looked forward to seeing him. When he was sick, I took him to the pharmacy and bought whatever medication I thought would help him, with the help of a diagnosis by the pharmacist. The team at the house did what we could for him, offering a little extra cash for the work he did for us, just to help him. He was kind and sweet and we all wanted to do whatever we could for him.

One day my business partner, Mokhtar, announced that L’Abadee had died. He died. I couldn’t grasp it. I knew he had been sick the last time I saw him, but I never suspected the sickness would kill him. When? I asked. No one knew, Mokhtar said. But apparently it was true since no one had seen him for at least 4 months. I was due to visit within days and I couldn’t imagine the neighborhood – – or even my visits to Morocco – – without him. The news was devastating.

On a quiet evening in autumn, soon after I arrived in Marrakech, the doorbell rang. we glanced at the computer image of the security camera aimed at the front door. No one was there; just the palms on either side of the front door. Then Mokhtar announced, “It’s L’Abadee!” I leapt up and flung open the door, helping the frail old man inside. He was alive! I couldn’t believe it. Instinctively I hugged him and felt his bones poking at me through his thin clothing. He must’ve weighed only 30 kg (65-70 pounds)! But he was alive. We couldn’t believe it.

While Mokhtar and L’Abadee spoke, I could see inside his gandora, (traditional dress for a man in Morocco), and saw tubing and a bag. Putting 2+2 together, between this and his very yellow skin, I determined he had liver cancer. Mokhtar confirmed it. We both hunched that he had probably just left the hospital as he had little strength and was out of breath from the walk to the house.

Desperate to tell him what he meant to me – – and thankful for this second chance! – – I spoke fast English to him even knowing that he didn’t understand. I needed to express my feelings for him. Luckily Mokhtar jumped in and translated as L’Abadee listened, with a slight smile, as we (they) spoke. We hugged, gave him the equivalent of 20USD and he was on his way. As quickly as he had arrived. In and out. Leaving behind a whirlwind of emotion.

After closing the door we went to the computer image of the security camera and watched as he leaned against the wall to adjust his tubing, his gandora, himself. And then he was gone. I knew that would be the last time I saw him.

In stunned silence we sat there. What had just happened!? After 4 months, this man came to see  us! Unbelievable.

We had to go to the parking lot so we could share with the workers there our excitement that our friend was still alive. Zachariah, my favorite attendant, greeted us. We excitedly told our news about L’Abadee. His face fell and he stepped backwards and told us to stop! Stop talking about this, it can’t be true! He treated us like we were liars and refused to believe us. So we left. It was clear that L’Abadee had only visited us.

A few weeks later we got news from the parking attendants that L’Abadee had officially died. A man in the neighborhood, who remains anonymous, paid for his hospital stay and a group of the parking attendants collected enough money to pay for a proper burial.

L’Abadee left this earth knowing he was loved. ❤

The kindness of a stranger

05 Sunday Mar 2017

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In Marrakech, Morocco, I walked to the car wearing a back pack and realized I needed to pay the parking attendant, so unzipped the pack to remove the wallet. Unzipping the wallet, I grabbed some change, handed it to my business partner so he could pay the attendant, and tossed the wallet back into the backpack. As I continued walking to the car, a man stopped me. He is a man I have seen many times; a vagabond, a man addicted to drugs, someone I considered unseemly, dirty, even shifty and untrustworthy.

I backed away, giving the signal that I wasn’t interested in anything he had to say. Stop. No. Not interested. He pointed at me and made a zipping motion over and over. Thinking he wanted money from my zippered wallet, I shook my head vigorously back and forth. He persisted. I became more emphatic and said, ‘La!’, the Arabic word for no. This went on for a bit as I made my way toward the car.

My business partner, Mokhtar, arrived, talked with the man for a few moments, and said to me, “Your back back is unzipped.” My back pack is unzipped? Oh! My back pack is unzipped!

This man was simply telling me with his zipping motion that my back pack was unzipped. I was stunned. Embarrassed. Ashamed. I had thought the worst.

With body language and broken Arabic I did my best to thank him. “Shukran besef! Shukran besef!” I repeated. Thank you, very much. Thank you, very much. He responded with a huge smile and a hand over his heart, a common sign in Morocco to symbolize thanks and appreciation. He walked me to the car, opened the door while I got in, then gently closed it behind me, waving and smiling as we drove away, hand over his heart.

Stunned, Mokhtar and I stared at each other, shocked at what had just happened. Shocked. And also thankful for the kindness of a stranger, someone from whom we least expected it.

Walk gently on this earth

05 Sunday Mar 2017

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Traveling has changed me. Traveling to Morocco has especially changed me. I am gentler and kinder, humble and thankful.

Gentler and kinder in that I see all humans as equals, none of us being better than the next. Each of us moments from either the greatest success or from the deepest despair. Humble and thankful because I’ve been accepted into a Marrakech neighborhood fairly easily over the two years I’ve owned a guesthouse, Dar Basyma. I see the same people every morning and night, and walk easily and naturally among them.

It’s probably not because of Morocco per se, rather it’s by placing myself outside of a comfort zone that has helped me see life and humanity differently; helped me see myself differently.

As a kid I imagined other countries in black and white, not in color (usually war-torn ones I saw on television where life looked awful). I thought their lives must be filled with despair and deep sadness. It must have been awful during certain times for the ones I saw, but their lives must have also been filled with love of family and friends, joy, and laughter. They must have lived in color, like I did. ‘We’re probably all the same,’ I remember thinking. And now I know we are all the same. Traveling has taught me that. People have taught me that.

“Through life, I want to walk gently. I want to treat all of life – the earth and its people – with reverence… As much as possible, I want to walk in peace. I want to walk lightly, even joyfully, through whatever days I am given. I want to laugh easily. I want to step carefully in and out of people’s lives and relationships. I don’t want to tread any heavier than necessary.

And throughout life, I think I would like to walk with more humility and less anger, more love and less fear. I want to walk confidently, but without arrogance. I want to walk in deep appreciation. I want to be genuinely thankful for life’s extravagant, yet simple, gifts – a star-splattered night sky or a hot drink on an ice-cold day.

If life is a journey, then how I make that journey is important. How I walk through life.”
― Steve Goodier

 

 

It’s not what you’re given, it’s what you do with it

10 Sunday Apr 2016

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I am amused by Hugh Jackman’s name. All the time I transpose his name to ‘Huge Ackman’ and it makes me laugh to myself. 

  
This morning he appeared on CBS Sunday Morning to talk about his fair trade coffee company, Laughing Man. The story touched me. 

The back story is that he was doing a documentary on coffee growers in Ethiopia and met a man who influenced his life in surprising ways. This man was happy and made him laugh, for one. Hugh found himself pulled in and before long, he was opening a coffee store he  named Laughing Man, after this happy Ethiopian. He since has opened additional stores and gives all proceeds to charity, like Paul Newman did with his salad dressing. His business is successful and lives have been affected. 

I’m skipping a bunch of the story because I want to get to the good part. The part where Hugh talks in a way that I completely relate to. The part where he talks about watching people’s lives change. His experience resonates deeply with me.

He says:

“It’s not what you’ve been given, it’s what you do with it.”

He also says:

“Sometimes it’s tempting for my ego to go ‘Oh wow! Look what I’ve created!’ But I know I haven’t. Things have conspired and sometimes it just takes saying yes and ‘having a go’ for these things to sort of play out. …a cup of coffee changes the lives of these [coffee] growers. I’ve seen a massive difference with just one cup of coffee. It’s changing a life.”

This resonates with me because often, when describing the events of my own life this past 3-4 years since falling in love with Morocco, I say “It’s not me! I’m just saying yes to what’s presented me!”

But I never can quite describe it. Like I’m in a jet stream flying where the air takes me. Like I’m a marionette being controlled by something that wants me to go in a certain direction. But now today, thanks to Huge Ackman, I can say it’s like things have conspired and I’m saying yes and giving it a go. 

That’s exactly what it is!

Hugh Jackman – Laughing Man coffee

 

A house in Marrakech

09 Saturday Apr 2016

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I’m reading ‘A House in Fes: Building a Life in the Ancient Heart of Morocco’ by Suzanna Clarke. It’s not the first time I’ve read this book and it won’t be the last. Since I read most books on an iPad / Kindle, I can see which passages impressed me the first time by the highlights placed in yellow.  This time around I’ve added even more since I can relate more fully to Suzanna’s experiences. In fact, it may serve better to highlight the parts to which I don’t relate!

While vacationing in Morocco, Suzanna and her husband were inspired to purchase a home in Fes, one of the medieval walled cities that is one of Morocco’s famed ‘Imperial Cities.’ But the Clarke’s didn’t just buy any old house. They bought a dilapidated, centuries-old house with no plumbing, no electricity, and myriad other issues with which to contend! Their goal was to restore it using only traditional craftsmen and handmade materials. It’s a great story chronicling the restoration of the house, but it also offers an insight into Moroccan customs and lore, as well as a window into the lives of its people and the relationships Suzanna forges. In the end, the house, Riad Zany in Fes, is restored to probably even more than its former glory and the writer (and most likely Sandy, her husband) have ended up restoring themselves to the very core of their beings! I enjoyed the book the first time around but I’m enjoying it even more now that I have my own perspective on Morocco and home-ownership there.

The writer Paul Bowles called Morocco a place where travelers ‘expect mystery, and they find it.’ He also said, ‘Africa is a big place and will offer its own suggestions.’ There’s no better way to find these truths out than to own a house or to renovate one, like Suzanna Clarke did.

A few of the highlighted passages that strike a chord with me:

“Maybe it was a fit of madness, but on just our second visit to the old Moroccan capital of Fes, my husband and I decided to buy a house there – – as one does in a foreign country where you can’t speak the language and have virtually nothing in common with the locals.” (I strongly disagree with the last phrase. Although I barely speak the language, I find I have a lot more in common with the locals than not!)

“Nevertheless, [we] responded to Morocco in a way we had to no other country. We found it as multi-layered and intriguing as the patterns in the tile work adorning the buildings, each of which has its own hidden meaning. Morocco has the mystique of a land from the Old Testament yet appears to be coping comfortably with modernization… Outside mosques, running shoes are lined up next to pointy-toed babouches. In the souks, women wearing long robes and headscarves escort daughters with beautifully cut hair and high heels. You can eat at a street stall, in a Parisian-style cafe, or next to a tinkling fountain in an ornate courtyard. You can find yourself in the midst of a crazy, honking traffic jam, or dodging donkeys in cobbled alleyways, or riding a camel in the solitude of the Sahara.”

“There were obvious drawbacks, like the nuttiness of buying a house on the other side of the planet, a leg-cramping, blood clot-inducing, [12-hour journey] away. And just when would we actually get to spend time there? Our jobs consumed our lives… When exactly would we fit in a commitment to a property in another country?”

The writer Paul Bowles also said this: “Because we don’t know when we will die, we get to think of life as an inexhaustible well.  Yet everything happens only a certain number times, and a very small number really. How many more times will you remember a certain afternoon of your childhood, some afternoon that is so deeply a part of your being that you can’t even conceive of your life without it? Perhaps four or five times more, perhaps not even that. How many more times will you watch the full moon rise? Perhaps twenty… And yet it all seems limitless.”

It’s because of this sentiment, because of the fact that I don’t know when I will die, and because now Morocco is so deeply a part of my being, that I decided to do the nutty thing of buying a house on another continent in a country where I barely speak the language! And it’s because I cannot conceive of my life without this beautiful, vibrant, and mysterious place!

Freedom?

26 Saturday Mar 2016

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Freedom. It’s a word I’ve always known, grown up with, understood. For me it just is. I never really think about the word and its meaning, but naturally just live it. Live with it. But that isn’t the case with people from certain other parts of the world.

Recently when discussing a possible trip to the States, a Moroccan friend commented, “I just want to know what it feels like to be free!” It got me thinking. Really, for the first time, I evaluated just what it feels like to be free; to feel free. I had never really thought about that before. What does it feel like to be free? And I tried to describe the feeling to him. But it wasn’t easy. It wasn’t easy because it’s so engrained in me. It’s a way of my life.

When I said that one of our freedoms in the States is the right to criticize the government, he said he wouldn’t want to criticize his government because he loves the King. When I told him another freedom is the right to criticize, select or deselect religion, he said he would never want to do that; he wouldn’t think of not being Muslim. Those are two big freedoms right off the bat that he would not be able to comprehend on just a short visit.

So that’s what got me wondering if someone visiting the USA can understand or grasp even the concept of our kind of freedom in just a short visit. Is it possible? Freedom is more a state of mind I think; a knowledge that you have choices.

 

A word on literacy

26 Saturday Mar 2016

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I take for granted that people know how to read and write. But in Morocco that’s not always the case.

One day I was home alone with our housekeeper / cook at Dar Basyma. I was without the aid of my constant interpreter / business partner and was excited about this chance to get to know her better. I pulled up the Google Translate iPhone app, typed my message and showed it to her in French. She shook her head no. Misunderstanding, I typed it in Arabic instead. Again, she shook her head. The look on her face jarred me to the realization that she cannot read. Not at all. Eventually I spoke into the app and it voice-translated, but not in Darija (Moroccan Arabic) so it was cumbersome and hard to understand. So we sat awkwardly in silence and smiled until Mokhtar came back and was able to help us “chat.”

Since then I’ve learned that guests have left her notes that she cannot read. And we’ve had some mishaps with household cleaning products being used for the wrong things, lotions put in the conditioner containers (because they’re both white), and using the wrong settings on the washing machine. And she has no ability to read texts or to proofread her own spoken texts to others.

I know this is more frustrating for her than it is for the rest of us. Our house man works well with her. They’re close friends and spend much of their time laughing and huddling together over their phones as he has become a sort of Cyrano de Bergerac, penning her texts to family members, suitors, and friends; like Steve Martin in ‘Roxanne.’ It’s sweet and it’s funny, but the bottom line is that it’s mostly sad that she can’t do this work herself.

As she tells it she was a girl who liked only to have fun (I believe it, as she’s always laughing and joking). She consistently ran away from school and finally just quit. School isn’t required and for sure not required for girls so there was no motivation for her to stay at the time. Now she regrets it. And as she’s in her mid- to late-30’s, so feels it’s too late for her now.

Since she teaches the cooking classes at Dar Basyma, I’m working to put together her recipes since she obviously has nothing written down! She’s an excellent cook and she communicates well without speaking fluent English or writing, but we have no record yet of any of her myriad dishes she prepares at Dar Basyma. It’s a big job that I will pursue on my next visit.

Her solution for our inability to speak to one another is for me to learn Arabic. As though that’s an easy (or quick) task! Since she speaks French and Arabic, to her that seems an easy solution. I’m trying…

A Tattletale Among Us

20 Sunday Mar 2016

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There are rules in Morocco. Or at least ways of life. And I’m just learning them. Some of them.

One day, I excitedly walked out of Dar Basyma and around the corner a few feet to see if my friends were arriving yet. I was excited because these were my first friends to visit whilst I was also there.

Apparently I did a bad thing. I noticed a  neighborhood girl watching me not with smiling eyes, but with a judgy look. I knew I had done something wrong but didn’t yet know what.

When we left the house later that day, the girl (whom I now know is Fatima) grabbed my Moroccan male companion and whispered something in his ear. To me he said, “You wore your house shoes outside earlier. She’s telling me you’re supposed to wear your house shoes inside only and wear your outside shoes outside only.”

That’s when I knew I was being watched. Scrutinized and judged. I turned and gave her the stink eye, and then I laughed. She laughed back and that was that!

I say Morocco, You say Monaco

20 Sunday Mar 2016

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So many people don’t really know where Morocco even is. And many confuse it with Monaco. But there was a time I didn’t know where it is either so I am patient explaining it. When I say it’s in North Africa, roughly 8 miles south of Spain, most people are shocked since Morocco conjures up images of remoteness and roughness and it just seems farther away than Spain!

Here are a couple of maps to help you gain perspective if you fall into the category of people who don’t really know where Morocco is!

Boss schmoss

27 Wednesday May 2015

Posted by in Morocco house

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There’s nothing like owning a home (that’s going to be a rental property) and having a team (Housekeeper, House Manager and Operations Manager) to show you, in glaring detail, how annoying you are!

My persnickety demands surprise even me.

  • No labels on anything. Not on pillows, sheets, towels, pans, bottoms of candles – – nothing. ‘No paper labels,’ I shout in my head like Joan Crawford. (This Mommy Dearest reference would be lost in translation if said aloud)
  • No clocks. Don’t let guests even inkle the time. Let them completely relax and lose themselves in the culture and flow of Marrakech life. Besides, if they knew they’d be eating at 22:00 hours, they’d freak.
  • No dust or grime on any light switch or electrical plug or ledge or moulding or surface of any kind.
  • These actual words came out of my mouth, “Your first priority is to make it pretty.” This came to mind when I noticed the House Manager had put a dish scrubby in a leftover container of spackle or something like that. “If it’s not pretty, don’t use it,” I say.
  • No matches or candles allowed in case a guest forgets to blow them out.
  • More sauce in the tajine (I did say ‘please’, at least)
  • Duplicate sets of keys sorted by color for each room. Each room has its color.
  • No talking on the phone when clients are here.
  • ‘We’re getting Dar Basyma tee shirts so we look professional’, I said. Yes! This came from my mouth! I absolutely hate having to wear the tee shirts/outfits my company makes us wear from time to time so I really can’t believe I said this.

And after all of this, the House Manager came to me tonight and said, “Put the coffee cups here, not there. You come here if you need them.” I had to laugh because this really isn’t my house; I’ll be here like 3x per year and they will run the place, for crying out loud!

Dar Basyma

26 Tuesday May 2015

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Three years ago, almost to the day, I visited Morocco for the first time. Within moments of that first visit I knew I loved it, especially the rural areas. A slow rhythm of life in the villages with children playing, animals roaming about, and women in traditional clothing talking to each other and minding the household tasks. Birds sang, winds blew, rain came and went, tranquility! And exactly what I needed at the time.

Marrakech, however, was my least favorite place of all the places I visited that trip – – and a few more trips after that! It seemed “too much.” Too much movement, too many people, too loud, too much traffic, too hot, just too much. But with each visit, Marrakech grew on me and I missed the activity and movement of it all when I was away. I came to realize its charm and wildness and joy. There’s a vibrancy here, a pulse. It’s undulating with life and activity and I like feeling a part of it.

On each visit I met more people and became more comfortable with my surroundings. I got more of a sense of the real place and not just the tourist view I held before. I explored the medina, the old part of town that most tourists see and the new city as well. It started feeling familiar by finding stores similar to what I’m used to at home and restaurants dubbed “my favorite”. It became a place I wanted to visit over and over again. And I did.

On the 9th or so visit, I bought a house! After looking at dozens of places and analyzing neighborhoods, researching the feasibility of purchasing as a foreigner, spending hours meeting with lawyers (notaries, as they are called here), interviewing accountants, and visiting various government offices (where everything is done with pen and paper, many times, at multiple stations around a room for checking and double-checking later), I finally selected an accountant, a notary, and a home.

Taking renters into the home means having a bonafide business registered with the Moroccan government. I created it and called it Myriad Property. It means ‘an unlimited amount’ but also, separated, it becomes My Riad Property, so it has double-meaning. It’s registered and operational, soon to be taking in revenue.

The place is named ‘Dar Basyma.’ Dar = house and Basyma = Big Smile. I had a choice in spelling to name it Dar Basima (which means ‘smile’) but I chose the spelling with a ‘y’ because I have a friend named Basyma in Beirut, Lebanon and wanted to take that spelling for her. I think ‘big smile’ fits better anyway! Exciting for sure!

So now I’m at the house, getting things up and running for guests. Already we’ve had two sets of visitors and there are four of us working on it: an Operations Manager, a House Manager and a Housekeeper. It’s a lot of fun and I hope it continues to be. It’s already busy enough that we’ve had to turn people away!

This is the beginning of something big, incha’llah.

She’s a real hot one, I tell ya

28 Thursday Aug 2014

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It’s hot. Not just hot, but HOT. Not the kind of hot about which you casually complain, but the kind where you moan out loud. It’s the kind of hot that makes a face drip sweat. At least mine. Sauna-hot. Carry-a-towel-with-you-everywhere hot. The kind of hot that makes you wonder what on earth you were thinking when you decided to visit Morocco in August?! Hot like when you turn on your car and it blasts piping hot air from the an A/C not yet
ready to act like an A/C. Seriously and ridiculously hot, dry, heat.

So we get up early and do what needs doing and we take a rest midday until it becomes more manageable. We are grateful for sweat because it cools us in the rare breeze. And we sit in an Internet cafe drinking cold water and juice whilst misters spray us, the whole time listening to French music. We are tranquil, happy, and mildly less hot here. Today, at least. Tomorrow we go to Sahara Desert where the temperatures are at least 20 degrees hotter.

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Say YES

24 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by in Morocco, Uncategorized

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I’ve said it before on this blog, but I’ll say it again: if you keep saying yes in life, it’s hard telling what will happen or where you’ll end up. Take for example these recent doings. Since I love Morocco and have an interest in pretty much everything surrounding travel, new cultures/people, and real estate, I decided to pursue my plan to buy a riad, or guesthouse, in Marrakech. A real big deal, but only one part of this story.

Here’s another part. My best friend, Laurel Lindahl, is a producer/director and writer, among other things (like jokester, comedian, brownie-batter-eater, etc…). She recently won her second Emmy Award for a documentary film, linked below.

http://vimeopro.com/ebenandelle/the-ketchikan-story-project

So she knows what she’s doing. And she’s good at it. That got the two of us talking. Since I’m interested in buying a riad and she has experience with documentary filmmaking, why not film the whole riad-buying experience? Why not make it into a marketable piece of film for some such use down the road? We got excited about this so loosely laid out a plan where we would travel to Morocco in November 2014 and bring a filmmaker with us to capture some footage.

And then things progressed even more. Mokhtar, my friend in Morocco, wants to visit the USA so last week went to the US Embassy to interview for a visa. They kept his passport, which is a real good sign that they’re going to allow him to visit. At least that’s what we’re thinking. So that’s another part of the story.

But there’s more. Since I’m going to Morocco over Labor Day weekend (next week!) to check out riads, why not bring a filmmaker along for a few days to film the experience? And why not ask the one filmmaker whom you have heard so much about and with whom you really want to work? And besides, he lives in Amsterdam, which makes the flight so much more manageable. So we quickly devised a plan and emailed him asking if he was available. He is. We asked him if he wanted to work with us and if he would provide costs involved. He does, and he did. And now I’ve booked his flight and we’re making plans for an entirely different trip than I originally planned!

And also, on this end in the States, we’re going to meet with another filmmaker and storyteller who will create a video for a Kickstarter campaign so we can get the film funded. And since Mokhtar will presumably be visiting in the next month or so, we will be able to work with him during his visit for the Kickstarter video and for a film we will do about his life as well as the lives of other Moroccans.

We came up with this idea a few months ago, but all details have transpired in less than 24 hours. The project has already evolved into more than we thought and we will keep moving forward with our ideas as long as things are falling into place. We will keep saying YES and see where we end up. More here as it happens!

Accentuate the positive

29 Saturday Jun 2013

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A friend offered me valuable advice a few years ago. When struggling with a decision I felt had to be decided right then, she shrugged and said, ‘This isn’t a problem. It’s an opportunity. It’s an opportunity to say yes! Say ‘yes’ as long as you want to. Don’t try to rush into a decision, just keep saying yes.’

What amazing advice this has proven to be! Keep saying yes. I’ve tried it again and again in these past years and am amazed at the outcome!

In some parts of my life there are people who have constantly said no. No to travel. No to risk-taking. No to change in general, even the simplest of changes. People who have wanted to just live life the same, the easy way, or the no-risk way. But I’ve always fought against that in my own small ways. I’ve adapted my life to be such that allows me to say yes to the things I want to do. I just keep saying yes – – until I have to say no. And when I find myself saying no too often, I switch things up so I can say yes. For example:

It’s not a diet, it’s healthy eating. That’s a yes.
It’s not ‘I can’t afford that.’ It’s ‘I’ll do that later.’ That’s a yes.
It’s not ‘My sales numbers suck.’ It’s ‘I can do better.‘ That’s a yes.

In my travels throughout the world, I’ve joked at other cultures and how they refrain from saying no. In Malaysia it was always yes! Yes, you can make the ferry, they effused! But it was already pushing away from the dock. In Japan, there would be a blank stare, or they’d look away, or they’d change the subject, just so they wouldn’t have to say no. In Morocco, instead of saying no, people I have met will ask questions to get the conversation moving toward yes.

I’m taking a lesson from my travels and trying to say no less often. And yes is just so much prettier to say than…