"Yes Man" by Danny Wallace

I read "Yes Man" by Danny Wallace a few years ago, and after reading it I was inspired to tell as many people I knew as possible to read it, for its fantastic humour value but also to help people realise how good you feel about yourself when you say yes to opportunities that come up! I told so many people about it, and lent the book to so many friends that I actually have no idea where it is now, but hope that people are still passing it on!

The book tells the true story of Danny Wallace's experience being a 'Yes Man'. He is inspired one day by a man that he meets on a London bus, and decides that from then on he is going to say yes to any opportunity that comes his way. However, only he and his best friend know this so that people won't take advantage of him and ask him for money etc.

The book is very funny. It makes you realise how many opportunities really do come our way every day, whether in the form of questions from friends, invitations, advertisements for products in the form of orders e.g. "Subscribe to *magazine* today!" or things like spam emails. We have so many options these days that it is so easy to say no. E.g. someone from uni that you don't know very well invites you to a party via facebook, purely because you are on their list of friends and you help to make up numbers for their party, but they don't really care if you show up or not. The obvious answer is no, right? Much easier not to go, not to socialise with lots of people that you don't know, not to pay the bus fare to get to their house (which you don't know the location of) and you won't really be missed as the host didn't really care in the first place whether you showed up or not. But what if you did go? You might hear some great music from a band you didn't know about before, or hear some really funny stories, or meet someone you really get on with and end up making a friend for life; it could be anything really. It might be crap, but you'd never know what you'd missed if you didn't give it a go. This is the kind of thing that Danny Wallace was faced with on at least a daily basis, and saying no just wasn't an option anymore.

Saying yes to everything got Danny into various crazy situations, meant he did have to spend quite a lot of money, swept laziness completely of the table but most of all enabled him to have a lot of fun, and really gain something from his experience. I'm not saying that after reading the book that I went out there and said yes to everything though; especially being a student I don't have nearly enough time or money to do something like that, and plus - everyone likes being able to be a bit lazy sometimes! However it is a really inspirational read and after having read it I do try and take more of the opportunities that do come my way, and so far it has paid off!