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I just saw the movie ‘Yes Man’ starring Jim Carrey and besides the fact that it was a really enjoyable movie, I think it contained an important message.

For those of you who have not seen it, ‘Yes man’ is about the life of a man called Carl. (Jim Carrey).

Carl is a man who leads a miserable life.

His wife left him 3 years ago, he works in the same bank for the last 5 years, hates his job and has made no progress promotion wise.

Carl always makes up excuses when people ask him to come out or ask him to help out, and he even misses his best friend’s engagement party because he couldn’t be bothered.

This is the point where his best friend tells him that he needs to get his act together or he is going to lose everything and end up alone.

Through an old friend, Carl gets introduced to a ‘YES’ seminar, and the host and creator of the seminar and program uses Carl as an example in front of the whole audience, getting him to take the ‘YES’ oath, meaning that he has to say YES to everything.

From that moment, Carl’s life starts to change.

His first act starts when a homeless guy asks him for a ride to a park. Unwillingly he says YES. The homeless guy asks to use Carl’s cell phone, and at the end of the ride asks him for all the money in his wallet. Carl complies (albeit not totally voluntarily) since he is now a ‘YES’ man.

Amazingly, good things start to happen to him. He meets an amazing girl, his friends start to like him, he gets a promotion in his work. All these things are as a result of him saying YES to things he normally would make excuses for or bluntly say NO to without even thinking.

Taking flying lessons,guitar lessons, learning Korean, taking the first plane out of the airport and taking his girlfriend on a super spontaneous vacation.

The only problem is…Carl says YES to everything. This causes trouble, and almost causes everything to fall away from him.He loses his girlfriend, people take advantage of him and his life starts to suck.

The lesson is that you can’t say YES to everything, because some things just have to be said NO to.

In the end, when Carl realises that you can say no, and you should say YES to things because you WANT TO and not because you HAVE TO, everything falls back into place, and he and his girlfriend make up and live happily ever after.

It really is an enjoyable movie, I hope I didn’t ruin it for those of you who haven’t watched it yet.

Carl made me realise that so many of us are like the old Carl…
Making excuses, saying no to things, being selfish, living an unhappy life of mediocrity where we hate our jobs or our situations.

How often has someone invited you to go out, join them, or try something new, and you just made up an excuse, not really because you can’t go, but because you are prejudiced against it? You would rather sit at home watching a rerun of an old TV show.

Have you ever had a predjudice opinion against something, before you even knew what it was really about or what it was like? And then one day, through chance, you decided to try it out, and WOW…did you love it?!

The message that I got from the movie ‘Yes Man’ is that we should not always be so narrow-minded.
Be open to new things and new ideas. Before you say NO to something, think about it for a second.
Could you say YES instead and give it a try?

At least if you have tried it and know what it is about, then you know what you will be saying NO to.

Doing something new does not even always have to be for your benefit, help someone else out. Be selfless and do something really nice for someone when they ask, or even when they don’t, and do not ask for anything in return.

I know the Law of Attraction is a topic of big debate and whether it is true or not is for you to decide, but from experience, I have found that what you send out is what you get back.

You can’t start out by expecting to get things without getting anything in return.

First…start giving.
Give what you can when you can.
Not because you must, but because you want to.

It can be a smile, a helping hand, friendship,money, food or anything else in this world.

Chances are, good things will start to happen to you, and you will notice the same kind of things that you are doing for others, will start being done to you.

Say YES to life, not because you have to, but because you want to!

Have a Rockin’ day
Diggy