Maybe It's Time to Start Saying Yes Again

On rest, retreat, and the slow art of saying yes again

Okay, quick question. Do you remember Titanic? Of course you do. It swallowed the entire planet for about two years; you couldn't buy groceries without hearing Celine Dion or seeing Leo and Kate flying off the front of that ship on every magazine cover. And I do mean the planet. In Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where movies were banned outright, smuggled copies flooded the black markets anyway, bakers were selling Titanic-shaped wedding cakes, and the religious police started arresting barbers for handing out DiCaprio haircuts. That is a level of cultural saturation we may never see again. And I am not, I repeat not, getting into the door debate today. Whether there was room for Jack on that floating piece of wood is a conversation that has ended friendships, and I'd like to keep mine.

Here's the part I actually want to talk about. Rose could've had a financially easy life. She was engaged to a wildly wealthy man who was also, and I'm being generous here, a complete tyrant. Her whole future was a life of leisure in beautiful drawing rooms, wearing beautiful clothes, doing absolutely nothing, slowly turning into furniture. And she looked at all of it, felt the noose tightening around her neck, and said no. Not because it wouldn't be comfortable. But because it would've lacked adventure, it would've lacked autonomy, and it would've been small.

Spoiler ahead, so if you've somehow never seen it, skip to the next paragraph and we'll pick you back up there. For the rest of us: at the very end, when Rose is old and drifting off, they show the photographs she kept by her bed her whole life. And it's not portraits of her sitting still looking rich. It's her on horseback. Her on a plane. Her at the pier, in the mountains, out in the middle of her own enormous life. Jack gave up everything so she wouldn't waste hers, and the whole audience lets out a sigh of relief, because look. Look what she did with it. She didn't waste it.

I think about those photos more than is probably normal. Because the thing that shrinks most lives these days isn't a disaster; it's a series of perfectly reasonable nights in. No iceberg, no dramatic music, just a slow accumulation of no thanks, not tonight, maybe next time, sorry I can't make it, the couch looks too comfy. And then one day the world has quietly closed in and we're not sure when the door shut.

It's okay to say no, and other things that are true until they aren't

You've seen the posts. No is a complete sentence. Protect your peace. Cancel the plans. And sometimes, yes, absolutely. If you're running on fumes, if you can't stand the person doing the inviting, if your body is begging for a quiet night, then say no and don't lose a wink of sleep over it. Rest is real and you don't owe anyone a permission slip.

But here's the part nobody posts about. There's a difference between rest and retreat, and the trouble is they can look identical from the couch. Both of them involve you, at home, in comfortable pants, not going to the thing. One of them fills you back up. The other one is very quietly shrinking your life while wearing rest's clothing. And only you know which one you've actually been doing lately.

So let's talk about how to tell rest from retreat; we'll get into why this used to be effortless and isn't anymore, what the research says your brain and your happiness actually need, and how to take one small step back out without blowing up your calendar.

First, so we're clear: I get it

I really do. I'm a planner. I lay out my whole week, and I will be the first to look at everything I've got coming and feel that little "oof" in my chest. Right now it's summer, and my calendar is fuller than I normally let it get. In the next two weeks I've got a day at Comic-Con, a Pride parade, a networking thing, and the Ladies Night Out I host. That's a lot for me, and when I sit down and really take it in, I feel it. That's allowed. I can notice it's a lot and still know it's temporary, and still know I'm going to be so glad I went.

The friction is real, I'm not pretending it isn't. Parking is a bloodsport and it costs a fortune. Everything takes planning. Getting out the door can feel like more work than the whole outing is worth. Every year we do Comic-Con without badges; we just go down and wander around outside in the beautiful chaos of it. Getting ready feels like climbing a mountain, every single time, and then we arrive and it's pure joy. The costumes, the photos, thousands of people out in the open being the most delighted, unfiltered versions of themselves, with their people. I'm not gonna lie, it gets me a little choked up. And not one single time have I come home and thought, gosh, I wish I'd stayed in and scrolled.

That's the whole thing, right there. We remember what we show up for. The concert, the class, the road trip with the wonderful trash snacks, the game night that went too late. Nobody, and I mean nobody, lies there at the end remembering a really productive evening of Instagram. So if saying yes feels like effort, welcome, it's effort for me too. You're in good company.

Why we were basically professionals at this as kids

Here's something that'll make you feel better. You used to be incredible at having a full life. Effortlessly. And it's not because you've gotten worse at it; it's because someone was working as your personal assistant, event planner, and chauffeur, and you didn't even have to ask.

Think about it. Most of us had a grownup quietly running a whole operation to turn us into well-rounded little humans. Museum one weekend, park the next, beach after that, a playdate, then summer camp where you got tossed into archery or pottery or theatre whether you asked for it or not. New experiences, constantly, and you never booked a single one. You just showed up and lived them. All that variety was somebody's plan.

And that plan did more than fill your Saturdays. A 2021 study found that the wider the range of enriching stuff someone did as a kid, sports, art, music, learning a language, the more it still showed up in how their brain was wired decades later, into their sixties and seventies. Related research ties that early variety to sharper thinking and slower decline down the road. A big childhood leaves marks that last a lifetime.

The plot twist is that when we grow up, the personal assistant quits, and the job of booking your life falls to you. Nobody's signing you up for pottery now. Nobody's driving you to the beach on a random Tuesday. So unless you deliberately reach for new things, your world just quietly tightens around the same few rooms.

Most of us picked up the job just fine, actually. We booked our own concerts and dinners and weekend trips for years. Then Covid cleared the calendar overnight, we got used to the couch and the scrolling and the not-going, and the habit stuck long after the reason for it went away.

Good news: your couch is not the villain

If you're bracing for the part where I tell you screens are melting your brain and you should feel terrible, exhale. Not going there.

A big review pooled 38 studies and over two million people and found that leisure of pretty much every kind was linked to lower dementia risk, around 17 percent lower for people who stayed active in their free time. Our brains especially love novelty, a little challenge, something new to turn over.

But here's my favorite part. When the researchers looked at what helped most, the top-scoring mental category included reading, watching TV, playing an instrument, doing puzzles, and yes, going down internet rabbit holes chasing something that caught your curiosity. So this was never a lecture about the remote. A brilliant series you're truly lost in is feeding your brain. A random deep-dive because you suddenly needed to know how volcanoes work is feeding your brain.

What isn't feeding you is the other kind of screen time. The dead-eyed scroll you won't remember by dinner. The show you put on not to watch but to not feel anything. The difference isn't couch versus no couch; it's awake versus checked out. On purpose versus numbing out. So watch the show, read the book, fall down the rabbit hole. Just do it because it lights you up, not because you're trying to disappear. That's the whole game, on the couch and off it: be here for your life instead of dozing past it.

Even taking photos works this way, which I think is delightful. Research found that snapping a picture can actually deepen how much you enjoy a moment, because it makes you look closer. But the second you're taking the shot to post it, that benefit evaporates, because now you've left the moment to think about how it'll look to everyone else. So take the picture because you want to remember the costumes, or the sunset, or your friend holding the sun in her palm like she owns it. Just don't take it to perform the day on the socials. Be in the day first.

Okay, time to take stock

Before you go RSVPing yes to all of humanity, slow down for a second. Grab your trusty pen and paper. This one works better written out than rattling around in your head.

Ask yourself what your life looked like before it got small. When you were doing more, were you thriving, or were you drowning? Because those are wildly different answers pointing in opposite directions. Some people really were saying yes to way too much, and Covid handed them a break they didn't know they needed, and they found out they love a quieter life. If that's you, amazing, this isn't me nudging you back into overwhelm.

So get specific. What do you actually miss, versus what are you relieved to be done with? Maybe you miss game night but you low-key hated the loud, packed concerts. That's not a contradiction, that's data. Keep the game night. Ditch the concerts. What lit you up? What drained you? What have you quietly stopped doing that you can't fully explain? And what's actually in the way? Maybe it's the parking, maybe it's the effort, maybe it's that the being-around-people muscle has gone a little soft from sitting out. Write it down. Once it's on the page, the difference between resting and retreating gets a lot clearer.

Here's the dare

You don't have to say yes to everything. Please don't; that's how you flame out by Thursday and swear off people for a month. You rebuild this the way you rebuild anything: small, then let a little win carry you to the next one.

So here's what I want you to do. When you finish reading this, open a tab and look up what's happening this month where you live. I'm in San Diego and the things to do list is always spilling over. Not to commit to anything yet. Just look. I promise you there will be twenty, thirty, fifty things, and you only need one. A hike you haven't done. A morning at

the beach. A class that runs a few weeks so the same faces start feeling like almost-friends. A food truck night. That restaurant you keep driving past and meaning to try. Pick one. Put it on the calendar. Go.

And can I point out how absurdly lucky we are here in San Diego? The people who study happiness for a living argue that a community's wellbeing runs on exactly this kind of infrastructure: the trails, the beaches, the parks, the museums, the places where people gather. In San Diego we are swimming in it. But wherever you are, I'd bet there's more within twenty minutes of you than you've looked at in years. A park you've driven past a hundred times, a lake, a trail, a downtown that does something on Saturdays. You don't need a big budget or a grand plan. You need a trail and a Tuesday.

What you're really building

Here's the thing the research keeps circling back to, and it's why any of this matters. We tell ourselves stuff lasts and experiences are fleeting, that at least a possession sticks around while an afternoon just comes and goes. Turns out that's backwards. As the researchers put it, it's the experience that lives on and the possession that fades away. The new thing loses its shine and disappears into the background. But the day at the beach, the trip, the concert, that stays. It becomes a story you tell, a memory you reach for, a piece of who you are.

We're the sum of our experiences, not what we own. If you sat down to write the story of your life, you wouldn't fill it with your furniture. You'd fill it with your own version of Rose's photos. The horse, the plane, the pier, the mountains. The proof that you were here and you didn't waste it.

So say no when you need to; truly, rest without guilt. But if your "no" has quietly grown to the size of your whole life, this is your nudge to start saying yes again, to just one small thing and see how it feels. Not everything. Just one. Your life is allowed to be quiet. Quiet is a choice. Small is what happens when you stop choosing.

And listen, if you've tried this and it feels so much harder than it should, there's almost always a reason, and it's usually not just about the parking. Maybe it's social anxiety. Maybe it's trauma, past or present, holding your nervous system in fight or flight. Maybe it's the fear of rejection, or of not knowing exactly what you're walking into. Whatever's underneath it, that's what I help people untangle. I'm Anne James, LMFT, and I offer a free 20 minute consultation. You're always welcome to reach out. We'll figure out what's in the way together.

Now go look up one thing. Rose would want you to.

References. 

Diehl, K., Zauberman, G., & Barasch, A. (2016). How taking photos increases enjoyment of experiences. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 111(2), 119.Gilovich, T., Kumar, A., & Jampol, L. (2015). A wonderful life: Experiential consumption and the pursuit of happiness. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25(1), 152.Morris, T. P., et al. (2021). Enriching activities during childhood and their association with brain structure in later life. Neurobiology of Aging.Su, S., et al. (2022). Leisure activities and the risk of dementia: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Neurology, 99(15).