{"id":112,"date":"2014-04-08T14:02:02","date_gmt":"2014-04-08T21:02:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/?p=112"},"modified":"2014-04-08T14:02:02","modified_gmt":"2014-04-08T21:02:02","slug":"yes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/?p=112","title":{"rendered":"YES!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow many of you think that maybe you\u2019ve said \u201cYes\u201d to too many things when you should have said \u201cNO\u201d? Yeah, me, too. Except\u2026. as I\u2019ve grown older\u2026 or should I say as I\u2019ve \u201cmatured\u201d \u2013 I\u2019ve found that there are many more times I wish I had said \u201cYes\u201d! I think that if you look back in time with me, you just might agree that more often than not, saying \u201cYes\u201d leads to a lot more fun!<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not talking about having been divorced twice\u2026.<\/p>\n

Because even those relationships had a lot of \u201cYes\u201d that felt pretty good! I got married because I said \u201cYes\u201d to love! And even though things didn\u2019t work out SO well, they did work for quite a while \u2013 16 years each time.<\/p>\n

But more recently, as I found myself with a lot more time on my hands, I started to get out in public more and meeting more people than I used to meet. A couple of summers ago, I started going to Alive at Five\u201d. A Toastmaster invited me to volunteer to serve beer in the beer tent.<\/p>\n

I said \u201cYes.\u201d\"yes-man1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I was pointed to a tap in the back of the tent. I grabbed a plastic cup and pulled a beer. It had about an inch of foam on the top. \u201cThat\u2019s no good\u201d she said. \u201cTry again.\u201d<\/p>\n

I did try again, and managed to only get about \u00be of an inch of foam on the next one.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s no good\u201d she said. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you move up front to the tables and wait on people. I said \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had a lot of fun chatting with people and taking the wood tokens for beers. There was great music playing and I started dancing around a little. Did I mention that we were allowed to drink for free?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when Sue Ferrin spotted me dancing, and said \u201cYou should be in Dancing with the Stars.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said \u201cYeah, right. Sign me up.\u201d She did!<\/p>\n

That\u2019s how I found myself dancing in front of more than 600 people on the stage at the Civic Center! And, Yes, I had a great time! I made new friends ! AND\u2026 I got a trophy!<\/p>\n

That\u2019s when another Toastmaster sent me an e-mail about the \u201cRed Eye Tens.\u201d She said \u201cYou like to do this kind of stuff, you should try it.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said \u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n

I found myself with a script in my hand at 9:00 am the next Saturday morning, learning the lines of a ten-minute play along with others who had said \u201cYes.\u201d Our group memorized all the lines when we put the play on for the public at 7:00 pm that same night! And YES, I wasn\u2019t too bad! I had a lead role in the play and I thought I did pretty well! As a matter of fact, Michael Gilboe, director of Performing Arts at UGF \u2013 the guy who had arranged for the Red Eye Tens production \u2013 said to me afterwards \u201cYou were pretty good. You have a voice that projects well. Can you sing, too?\u201d<\/p>\n

I said \u201cYes.\u201d I didn\u2019t say I could sing well\u2026..<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should try out for the musical South Pacific when it comes up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI said \u201c__ __ __.\u201d<\/p>\n

I went to tryouts in the Green Room at the back of the stage area. I was handed a script to read lines from. I didn\u2019t do too badly. Then I was told it was time to sing. Well, I hadn\u2019t exactly prepared for that. And this time we went into the music room where there were a LOT of other people. I thought about running, but I didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

I sang. \u201cSome Enchanted Evening\u2026..\u201d<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t need to finish. The Director said \u201cThat\u2019s enough.\u201d<\/p>\n

I said \u201c__ __ __.\u201d<\/p>\n

But I got a part playing Commander Harbison! And as rehearsals got underway, I met a lot of awesome people and made new friends \u2013 I drank with some of them last night \u2013 and next week are dress rehearsals and the show starts April 11th<\/sup>!<\/p>\n

Did you ever notice how one thing leads to another? Some people say that there\u2019s a woman to blame\u2026. But I know\u2026.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all about saying \u201cYES.\u201d<\/p>\n

So like Jim Carrey in the movie YES Man \u2013 just say YES! You never know where you\u2019ll end up, but you\u2019ll most likely make new friends and have a YES of a time!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cHow many of you think that maybe you\u2019ve said \u201cYes\u201d to too many things when you should have said \u201cNO\u201d? Yeah, me, too. Except\u2026. as I\u2019ve grown older\u2026 or should I say as I\u2019ve \u201cmatured\u201d \u2013 I\u2019ve found that there are many more times I wish I had said \u201cYes\u201d! I think that if you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":114,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions\/114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.drivingprinciples.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}