“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbors. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” 

~ Mark Twain

Part of the reason I stopped saying “yes” so much is that I got bitten a few times. Quite a few times, actually.

Like the time I said yes to loaning a friend of mine several hundreds of dollars when she was in a tight spot. Can you see where this is going? You got it — not only did she not repay the entire loan, but she proceeded to purchase really great outfits and wear them in my presence, prompting me to say, “Hey, great outfit!” when what I really meant was “Hey, where’s my money?”

Then there was the time I said “yes” to dating a guy just because he was British. Sure, he was cute and the son of a British High Commissioner at the time. And let’s face it: anything said with a British accent tends to sound absolutely brilliant. On the other hand, he was a) much younger than me b) we appeared to have only windsurfing in common (how we met) and c) he had a habit of hitting on other (older) women when we were together. As much as I loved hearing him pronounce my name with that jaunty lilt in his voice, it just couldn’t make up for the fact that I was wasting valuable time. But that ACCENT! Naturally, I had to say yes — right?

But probably the biggest “yes” I regret saying came when I was offered my dream job three hours from the city where my new husband and I were currently living and working. I’d been freelancing for the national home magazine for a couple of years, and my work and story ideas were always met with high praise from the magazine’s publisher.

So when the publisher called to offer my (without interview) the job as  editor, I jumped at the chance. Here was my “big break”, I thought to myself — a chance to take a tired publication from blah to BOLD! An opportunity to make a name for myself in the publishing world. A chance to build a lifestyle brand to rival all others.

And so, my husband and I sold our new home that we had owned for less than a year, left the city where I had grown up and where all my friends and family lived, and moved to a community where we knew no one and the only available job for my university-educated husband was a low-paying position at a local retailer.

The first day I walked into the publishing office, I noticed the posture of the employees who worked there. Very few of them actually walked with their heads held high and their shoulders back. Instead, they slumped at their desks, trudged through the hallways, and grunted rather than conversed.

Within three months, I was one of them.

My new boss, it turned out, was a conniving, backstabbing creature living with a mountain of insecurities. The very writing she had praised so highly only months before was now ripped apart along with my ego and self-esteem. Even though I was working 12-hour days, my work was never good enough and my story ideas “uninspired”. Day and night, I met with arti editors, photographers, writers and sales staff. I travelled constantly, covering stories on beautiful, old homes and their lovely owners. But no amount of work I did was ever good enough.

It turned out the magazine publisher had no interest in updating the magazine to compete with the others in the field. She liked the drab format just fine, thank you, and no amount of market data or visioning exercises could convince her otherwise.

“This job is changing who you are,” my husband observed one night. And he was right.

The proverbial last straw was when my boss lambasted me for using the word “tchochke” in a story.

“That’s not even a WORD!” she accused, throwing my story across her desk. “Now you’re just making things up!”

I sat silently, not even bothering to point out that a) yes, tchochke was in fact a word and b) I had included it in a quote by one of the homeowners who was referring to his collection of knickknacks. I wanted to defend myself, but the fight had gone out of me.

When she had finished her tirade, I got up, went back to my desk, and typed up a brief letter of resignation. And that was that.

I spent the next two years regretting saying “yes” to leaving my house, my friends, my family and the eclectic mix of ethnic, downtown restaurants my husband and I had loved so much. I went from low-paying job to low-paying job until finally I got a break and climbed my way back up the career ladder.

It was a hard lesson to learn.

DEFINITION OF “TCHOCHKE” (from the Merriam-Webster Dictionary):

noun tchotch·ke \ˈchäch-kə, ˈtsäts-\ : knicknack, trinket

Origin of tchotchke:

Yiddish tshatshke trinket, from obsolete Polish czaczko

First Known Use: 1971

YES #13: Yes I will volunteer to host the school yard sale for the Grade 7/8 trip to Quebec City next spring. Saturdays are precious in our family, but I hadn’t been as involved with our kids’ school as I would have liked. So this presented a good opportunity to not only raise some funds for my daughter’s class, but also get rid of a lot of unwanted clutter in my garage. Yes!

YES #14: Yes I will meet a friend of mine for lunch and act as her sounding board for a new business idea. With my own background in business, I was happy to share my knowledge and experience. And the pay-off (besides a lovely lunch) was getting inspired for some of my own entrepreneurial side projects. Awesome!

YES #15: Yes I will become the last Netflix subscriber on the planet. I finally gave up my penchant for actual DVDs (and the high cost associated with purchasing them). Now our family was just like every other family on the block: fully equipped with every episode ever recorded of “Full House”. Lucky us.