“Yes” and “no” are so much more than responses to requests and questions from others: they can signify commitment, rebellion, acceptance, rejection, victory, defeat.
Saying “yes” to something also means saying “no” to something else, because when we say “yes,” we’re using our time and effort, and sometimes, money. With a finite amount of those resources, we are always saying “no” to something else whether we are aware of it or not.
If I have an hour available before work, for example, if I say “yes” to coffee and lettering, I’m saying “no” to yoga and breakfast, no matter how much I want to do it all.
It matters if you’ve said “Yes” (or “No…”).
Even if the resulting action is the same, if I’ve approached the action with a “yes” vs. a “no” to its inverse, the experience will be entirely different.
When Rob proposed, I said “yes!” Now imagine if I’d thought, “Great, I don’t have to be single and date,” and accepted. That would be completely different because I would have been saying “no” to being single and dating. Both situations may have resulted in being married to Rob, but the experience of marriage would have been fundamentally different.
It seems like a semantic distinction but it’s not: It’s the difference between commitment and acquiescence, between choosing things and letting things happen to you.