To scoot or not to scoot?
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A few days ago I walked into my community’s kettlebell workout facility.
Resting on the desk was a new sign commanding me to
START YOUR DAY WITH YES
Really?
Confronted with something or someone new, my initial response for 72 years has been NO.
Sometimes nay becomes kay, but nada is my starting point.
The late public intellectual William F. Buckley described a conservative as
Someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop…
I’m a political liberal, with a conservative personality
To scoot or not to scoot?
That start your day with yes exhortation has been gnawing at me so I’ve been on the prowl for personal examples. Like yours, my days are filled with big and small opportunities to lead with NO or YES.
For example, a few weeks ago e-scooters appeared on the streets, sidewalks, and bike and hiking trails of our 8000 person community.
My first response was faultfinding, particularly when I saw a few discarded on the Trout Run Trail, an 11 mile blacktopped path around Decorah, Iowa.
Critical is a sometimes pretentious way of saying no. That was also my initial posture to e-bikes that appeared about three years ago. Is an electronically-assisted pedal bike really a bike? Won’t it clog-up our non-motorized byways? What will it do to the moral fabric of our community?
I didn’t know I could stand on that soap box while peddling.
A couple of years ago my friend Steve, who shares my 72 years, told me he purchased an e-bike to enjoy the trail regardless of heat or wind. Now he bikes more and only uses the pedal assist up switchbacks.
Travis, owner of a local bike shop, reported e-bikes are half his sales.
Lately, when an e-biker passes me on an incline I think someday I’ll repeat the favor and pass with a wave some whippersnapper.
And I’ve been rethinking my default NO to scooters.
It’s amazing the different modes of moving on our 11 mile avenue: biking, hiking, skating, skiing, strolling, running, and, not least, pulling babies in a bike trailer.
Just off the trail, nature viewing, trout fishing, and, of course, amour.
With all these ing’s going on, why not scooting?
Yes does not mean…
Starting the day with YES does not mean we say yes to everything or everybody.
It’s sensible for me to say NO to the headstand station during our kettlebell workout.
The same, silently, to the owner of the pick-up truck with the Confederate Flag painted on the tailgate I saw yesterday parked downtown.
Saying YES does not mean no judgment about what life presents. Apparently Decorah’s City Council is re-thinking its commitment to the Bird e-scooter program. An Informed YES or NO is a good thing.
As an orientation, Yes is an open door to the world. No is a closed door, with double locks. It can be opened, to an e-thing, but only grudgingly and after too much else is missed.
In Man’s Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl has a quote that relates to the theme of this essay. The context was the life-orientation of the despairing person Frankl encountered in Auschwitz and Dachau.
We had to teach the despairing men that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life–daily and hourly.
Starting my day with YES helps me be open to the questions life will pose.
