I keep a gist named yay.md. A secret, never shared and don’t plan to, gist. It’s where I keep screenshots of my personal yays.

A personal yay may be:

• When someone I admire appreciates a project that I made or worked on via Twitter, blog post, etc.¹
• When I was nervous or feared I did poorly, but others confirmed that I did well.
• When someone tells me something positive about myself that I needed to hear.

I look at yay.md when I feel nay.

A personal nay may be:

• When I’m struggling to understand something.
• When I feel inadequate.
• When I want to do everything all the time and all at once.²

Unlike yays, I don’t collect the nays. I find that collecting nays gives me a reason to look back when I should be looking forward. And I keep them secret because they’re for me and I can add to my yay trove without fear or consequence of being a yay hog.

I highly recommend curating your own yays because looking at mine reminds me to give them out more. Here’s to less nays and a karmic circle of yays.

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