No Means NO

As the old saying goes, "No means no."  In truth, the saying should be rephrased to say, "No means 'I'm afraid to take chances and commit to something at which I (or you) may fail, regardless of the fact that we'll likely succeed'."

On the whole, people trend toward "NO" as a knee jerk response to both simple and complex requests.  Why?  Simple... POWER.  This short, simple, two-letter word carries more power than any other word in the English language (with the exception, of course, of "love").  "NO" possesses the ability to shut down progress, disable hope, cripple change, and side-step risk.  It's a word wielded by bullies and coveted by cowards.  It is a safe word, devoid of risk.  "If we don't take risks, we can't fail! Maintain the status quo!  Bury our talents and wallow in mediocrity!  Let someone else say 'yes.'  THAT'S the safe path!  After all, we may not succeed, but at least we won't fail." 

The opposite of success is not failure.  Every successful man in history can attribute his success to the failures that made him stronger.  Failure becomes an inevitable companion to success.  The opposite of success is mediocrity; the failure to even attempt at succeeding.

Michael Eisner, the CEO of Disney, was quoted as saying, "To punish failure is to encourage mediocrity... failure is not a death sentence."   If failure is not a death sentence, what is?  In a word: complacency.

Eisner also said, "If it's not growing, it's going to die." Life dictates movement in one direction or another.  If we don't go forward, we must go back.  Nature does not abide stagnancy. An organism must either age and mature or whither and die.  There is no inbetween. 

And so it goes with recovery. The fear of failure envelopes sobriety and slowly suffocates it into hibernation.  In this stasis, sobriety ceases to grow and invariably withers and dies.

Once sobriety dies, the individual is doomed to follow suit.