Author: Chih Sang

For most of my life, I said yes often.

Yes to my job.
Yes to responsibility.
Yes to expectations.
Yes to being reliable, dependable, agreeable.

On paper, I was excellent at yes.

But that version of yes was transactional.
It was about keeping things running smoothly.
About not disappointing.
About earning approval, security, belonging.

That yes came at a cost I didn’t track at the time.

Somewhere along the way, my yes stopped being a choice and became a reflex.
I said yes before I checked in with myself.
Yes before asking if I had the energy.
Yes before asking if it aligned with who I was becoming.

This journey forced a reckoning with that word.

The Journey of Yes I wrote about now is not the same yes I lived before.
This yes is not about pleasing others.
It’s not about duty or obligation or being the good one.

This yes is about self-permission.

Yes to movement.
Yes to curiosity.
Yes to rest.
Yes to fear that points somewhere meaningful.
Yes to choosing myself without needing to justify it.

Before, yes meant I will carry this for you. Now, yes means I will not abandon myself.

That shift changes everything.
It turns yes into an act of freedom rather than sacrifice.
It turns yes into a boundary instead of a leak.
It turns yes into a compass.

The old yes kept me safe.

The new yes makes me alive. And here’s the quiet truth I didn’t expect:
Saying yes to myself didn’t make me less responsible.
It made me more honest.

This journey isn’t about recklessness.
It’s about alignment.

I still say no now often.

But when I say yes, it’s intentional.
It’s embodied.
It’s mine.

This post-mortem isn’t an ending.
It’s a clarification.

Two yeses.
Two lives.
Same word completely different meaning.

And this time, yes means freedom.